OA Boys Basketball Falls in Defensive Battle to Franklin

If you're going to win a defensive battle, the easy shots need to go in.

Unfortunately for the boys' basketball team Tuesday night, that wasn't the case. The Tigers fell to Franklin, 54-44 at home in their second straight loss, falling to 5-2 on the season.

"We’re fighting ourselves on offense right now," OA head coach Don Byron said. "We followed up a 25 percent shooting night against Stoughton with a 21 percent night tonight."

The Tigers never led throughout the contest, tying the game only once with 2:16 left at 44-44 when junior forward Duane Johnson hit his third 3-pointer of the game from the corner.

The late game surge didn't last for the Tigers, though. Franklin went on a 10-0 run in the final two minutes to cap off the victory and improve to 4-3 on the year.

"We made some big threes early in the game to give us a little bit of a lead," Franklin head coach Dean O'Connor said. "They did a good job in the box and one. (Sam) Bohmiller, our point guard, is our best player, but the other guys stepped up and scored so that was good."

The Tigers were able to contain Bohmiller on the defensive end of the floor, not allowing the junior captain to score until the final period when he scored 9 points.

Senior Joe Palazini was able to pick up some slack for the Panthers, however. The 5-10 guard found most of his baskets in the paint, finishing the game with 18 points.

"Palazini played a great game," O'Connor said. "He’s our second leading scorer and tonight he had some very good opportunities. Sam [Bohmiller] is averaging 18 in a game and he had none through I don’t know when. Palazini was active against the box and one and he was active. We wanted him to drive to the basket and he did a good job at that."

The Tigers were led on offense by senior captain Nick Bruha, whose seven points in the fourth quarter brought his total to 12 points. Johnson's three 3-pointers helped propel him to 11 points and senior captain Andrew Reardon added 9 points.

They will have a difficult task Friday when they travel to Mansfield to take on a Hornets team that just knocked off undefeated Stoughton Tuesday night. OA will be without senior captain Alex Tepper, who is out with a hand injury.