Ivan Yen leaped into the air with his back toward the hoop and his right hand reaching for the rogue ball.
When the ball connected with his palm, he brought up his left hand and forcefully smacked the ball as the scoreboard behind him read just one second left.
Fouled as he came down, the 6-foot-2 guard gave a slight fist pump and cracked a sly grin knowing that all he and his teammates had to do was successfully complete the inbound pass – which they did as Yen and Bishop Brady held on to beat Kingswood, 46-43, in a Division II boys’ basketball game on Friday night.
In the previous 24 minutes, the Giants had controlled the game on both ends of the floor. They grabbed the rebounds, offensively and defensively, spread the ball around and made most of their shots when the looks were open. Yen emphatically dunked the ball just before the buzzer sounded at the end of the third quarter.
But the Knights began to make it a game. They opened up the final quarter on a 5-0 run that was snapped with 5:45 left by junior Brady guard Gumee Mbata’s layup. The Giants scored their last basket of the game with a little over three minutes left off a Nathan Nelson free throw and with Kingswood missing shots, it seemingly felt as if the mini-run the Knights had put together to start the quarter would be duplicated.
Ethan Arnold, the Knights do-it-all senior, who eclipsed 1,000 career points during the first quarter against Brady, consistently had the ball in his hands down the stretch and made two critical free throws after a technical foul was called on Mbata.
Even with the ball in his hands and those of his teammates, Kingswood never found ways to score to tie or take the lead, and the Giants staved off the comeback attempt from their guests.
“Every game, we’re getting better and better on defense,” Yen said. “We always talk about, in the locker room, about talking on defense and switching. We struggled (early), but we’re giving teams a problem.”
Following an extended shutdown earlier in the season, the Giants have roared into the back half of their schedule with three wins – two of them over area teams Pembroke and Merrimack Valley.
Brady (8-5) has a tough draw to close out the season, however, as it will play four games in four consecutive days starting on Tuesday. But the Giants wouldn’t want it any other way as they know they’ve developed into a fringe tournament team. Now that they’re clicking, they could make some noise down the stretch.
“Tonight was a microcosm of our whole season,” coach Gary Lavoie said. “We’ve just been overcoming obstacles, and it’s because there are a lot of great basketball players in Division II. It was a great win.”
Nine of the 20 teams in Division II hold a .500 record or better, and three other teams are within one win of reaching an even record. With the regular season ending on Feb. 5, after one-loss teams Souhegan and Lebanon, D-II is seemingly wide open and should create for a dramatic tournament.
Yen and Mbata are optimistic that the Giants can be the source of some drama in a few weeks.
“We just need consistency and keep focusing,” Mbata said.
“We’re a dark horse team,” Yen said.