PITTSFIELD – You always hear coaches talking about looking for athletes who step up when it matters most. Jay Darrah found Jared Beliveau.
The Pittsfield boys’ basketball team (1-0) gave the senior forward the ball on its final play of the season-opener and Beliveau drove the basket, drew a foul with 0.7 seconds left on the clock and sunk his second free throw attempt to lift the Panthers to a thrilling 43-42 victory over the Franklin Golden Tornadoes (1-1).
“He’s really worked on his game, especially finishing at the basket,” Pittsfield head coach Jay Darrah said of Beliveau. “That’s why the last play was for him. We have a lot of confidence in him.”
That confidence decided a wire-to-wire contest that had five lead changes and two ties in the fourth quarter alone, including a 42-42 score with 1:58 left in the game.
Undersized and outmatched against a larger, skilled Franklin team led by Turkish exchange student Yagiz Sarmisak (24 points, 11 rebounds) and junior guard Zeke McCoy (13 points, seven rebounds, five steals, two assists), the Tornadoes took a 13-7 lead after the first quarter and extended their lead to as large as 17-7 in the second quarter.
But senior guard Parker Clark (14 points, four assists) hit a pair of 3s in that frame to cut Franklin’s lead to 25-23 at halftime.
“I was very, very pleased with the play of Parker Clark today,” Darrah said. “He played point (guard) for us the entire game. He held it together when there were times we could’ve fallen apart. There was one time (trailing 17-10 in the second quarter) where we needed a big basket and he got called on a questionable offensive foul. He came right down the other end and then finished for a three-point play.”
The Panthers also found ways to match up against Franklin’s size, with Beliveau (seven rebounds, four points, three steals, two assists), junior guard Justin Rivera (seven points, five rebounds, five assists, two steals) and senior forward Abe Marcotte (six rebounds, four points) playing well on the defensive side of the floor.
“What we lacked in size we made up for in heart and grit,” Darrah said. “We try to force turnovers by picking up the tempo at certain times in the game. We’ll do it more and more as the season progresses, but we had to pick and choose when to do it (today), but we benefited from it for sure.”
A bucket by Rivera gave Pittsfield its first lead (23-22) with 2:05 left in the first half and the Panthers led 35-29 heading into the final frame thanks to a pair of 3s from senior center Ashton Borkham (14 points, four 3s, three stea ls).
“Ashton has really put a focused effort into staying late, getting extra shots,” Darrah said. “And it shows. He’s got a little bit of confidence. That’s what you want to see with shooters. He missed a couple, but then hit three in a row. He missed another couple, then hit another one.”
Sarmisak hit a 3 with 6:19 left to tie the game 35-35 and McCoy connected on two shots from the charity stripe to give Franklin a 40-39 lead with 3:12 remaining, but lack of consistency ultimately hurt the Tornadoes.
“We had our opportunities, we just played in spurts,” Franklin head coach David Bedard said. “There were some times we were aggressive and sometimes we were being a little lazy, both on offense and on defense. At the end of the day Pittsfield made one more play than we did.”
Sarmisak fouled Beliveau that led to the game-winning shot, but the Tornadoes still had one more crack at the basket, with McCoy’s long 3 narrowly missing the mark.
“We had a really good look at it right at the end there, for a hot second I thought that last shot was going to drop,” Bedard said. “That would’ve been awesome, but sometimes it didn’t bounce your way. We just take our lumps today, watch the film, think about what went well, what didn’t, and keep working and keep improving. … Our hope is that we’re going to be in a position where we are playing important games late in the season, and this experience now is going to make us better for it.”
“It’s a fun way to open the season, especially at home,” Darrah added. “I was excited to see the guys execute towards the end of the game. There’s a couple things they need to work on, but I think they’re starting to get the gist of the flow of the game.”
In the girls’ matchup that preceded the boys’, Franklin (1-1) jumped out to an 18-2 lead after the first quarter and shut out the Panthers (0-2) in the second quarter for a 29-2 halftime lead en route to a 50-20 victory.
“Franklin did a really good job of controlling the pace of the game,” Pittsfield head coach Logan LaRoche said. “They were aggressive and forced turnovers just by playing hard. Our Panther girls were hesitant in their decision making because Franklin was playing in-your-face basketball.”
Senior Brooke Bedard and eighth grader Lily Cornell both scored 13 points to lead the Tornadoes. Kourtney Kaplan scored six points and played a big role in a strong team defensive performance by Franklin.
“We were trying to emphasize working on defense and that came out well,” Tornado head coach Mark Dionne said. “The passing was good, they looked around for each other. It was nice to see them put it all together.”
Franklin led 40-6 heading into the fourth quarter when the game opened up a bit.
Pittsfield point guard Briar Bell (eight points) did a good job moving the ball up the floor, getting to the rim and drawing fouls, while Chelsee Chagnon (six points) and Ryan Wood (aggressive in the paint) were also standouts for the Panthers.