OA Boys' Basketball Overcomes Another Slow First Quarter to Defeat Dartmouth

Coming into Tuesday’s game against Dartmouth in the first round of the Val Muscato Tournament, Oliver Ames boys’ basketball coach Don Byron was looking for his team to come out of the gate quickly; something they hadn’t done in their first three wins of the season.

Once again, though, the Tigers got off to another slow start, trailing the Indians 25-18 after the first quarter. But once again, OA was able to overcome the sluggish start and run Dartmouth out of the Nixon Gymnasium en route to an 88-59 victory to improve to 4-0.

“We talk about it all the time,” said Byron, whose team will face Medfield in the finals of the Muscato tournament Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

“We talked about it for two days ‘let’s come out of the thing right, let’s get a good warmup’ and all the things we have to say. But for whatever reason we came out slow again, but then we turned it [around].”

Dartmouth, which dropped to 1-4 on the year, couldn’t have asked for a better start to the year as Brady Holding gave his team a lift, scoring 11 of his 16 points in the opening eight minutes.

But things started to unravel for the Indians quickly. As Holding cooled down, OA tightened up defensively and frustrated Dartmouth.

With tri-captain Alex Tepper (4 points, 4 rebounds), Jeff Babbitt (8 rebounds, 6 points) and John Moroney (11 points, 5 rebounds) up front, OA eliminated Darmouth’s second chance opportunities. That trio quickly helped the offensive transition, getting the ball in the hands to tri-captains Nick Bruha and Andrew Reardon and St. Claire Ryan down the floor. As a result, the Tigers went on a quick 11-0 run in the first three minutes of the second quarter.

“Once we adjusted the defense then it became an up and down game and that played to our advantage,” Byron said about the team’s second quarter run. “At this size, if you don’t defend well and you don’t hit the boards well then it will get to you. Once we took care of that we were in pretty good shape."

Ryan put his team ahead for good at 26-25 moments after Dartmouth coach Steve Gaspar got called for a technical foul with nearly five minutes remaining in the first half.

Bruha, meanwhile, provided an extra spark just hitting a clutch three extending OA’s lead to 12 at 46-34 before halftime. From there, Dartmouth trailed by double digits the rest of the way.

With many of OA’s starters getting a second half breather – Bruha, Ryan, Reardon, Babbitt and Denzell Bennett – the Tiger bench made sure they earned the spotlight as well.

On top of Tepper and Moroney’s contributions off the bench, sophomore Nick Cidado earned some extra minutes with his stellar defense.

“A big part of this victory was the contributions that we contributions that we got off our bench,” Byron said. “John Moroney was terrific and we got some good stuff from Tepper and Cidado all night.”

Sophomore guard Nick Simonetti provided Dartmouth with a solid second half performance scoring 12 of his 16 points in the last 16 minutes, while senior forward Matt Nanopoulos led his team with six rebounds in the losing effort.

Dartmouth will face Belmont in the consolation game of the Muscato Tournament at 6 p.m. Friday night.