Owen Balsis goes up for 2 points. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Luke MacLean outjumps his opponent and can’t be stopped on his way to the hoop.
After slipping into fifth place last week, the Bromfield boys varsity basketball team reclaimed their fourth-place spot in the Midland-Wachusett D League this week with two decisive victories over rivals Trivium and West Boylston. On Monday, Jan. 29, the Trojans trampled Trivium at home by 43 points, with a final score of 61-18. On Tuesday, Jan. 30, Bromfield beat the Lions 72-41, also at home.
The Trojans certainly embraced their home court advantage against Trivium. The rematch came just one week after playing Trivium away, where Bromfield won by a much smaller margin at 42-37. Monday’s game started out slow in the first quarter, with the score at 7-4, Bromfield in the lead. Junior Lucas Bala set the tone for the rest of the game in the second quarter, sinking three 3-pointers in the first three minutes. “Lucas got us going, confidence wise,” said Trojans head coach Tim Skaggs in a postgame interview. “He was a good spark for the group.”
That confidence carried over to Tuesday’s game against West Boylston. In December, Bromfield beat the Lions on their home court after a hard fought, nearly two-hour game in which the Trojans came out ahead by 7 points. The first quarter of this matchup ended with Bromfield up by 5 points. In the second quarter, the Lions began to close the scoring gap, narrowing it to 23-18, but the Trojans rallied in the last two minutes and finished the half up 29-18. Bromfield continued to dominate in the second half, ending the game 31 points ahead of the Lions.
In preparation for the game, coach Skaggs had talked to the team about spreading the scoring among all the players on the court. “We talked about [junior] Ethan [Russo] scoring 31 points in [the December game] and whether or not he would be able to do it again,” said Skaggs. The coach’s assumption was that West Boylston would put their strongest defense on Russo. “We talked about where we could get those points elsewhere. We got players like [senior] Luke [MacLean] in a position where they could score.” Russo and MacLean tied for high-scorers with 21 points each, and junior Lucas Bala and sophomore Owen Balsis contributed to the win with 11 points and 10 points, respectively.
The Trojans were scheduled to play Ayer Shirley in an away game Tuesday, Feb. 6. After losing the game in December by just 2 points, Skaggs said he is ready for the rematch with the Panthers, employing a strategy he said the Boston Celtics used against the Milwaukee Bucks to keep power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo from scoring. “We’re going to build a fence,” Skaggs said. “Ayer Shirley has two players that score all their points. One of them scored in the 40s in two games last week. They score 90% of their shots in the paint [the area under the net] so if we can build a wall in the paint, it might work. If we can get one of those players into foul trouble, it will change the way they’ve been operating all year.”
The Trojans are scheduled to play Murdock Friday, Feb. 9, at Bromfield. The last time the teams met, Bromfield won 62-26.
Julie Gowel is a Bromfield varsity basketball parent.
