Mansfield Boys Best Oliver Ames in Barn Burner

Mansfield and Oliver Ames boys' basketball teams slugged it out on Friday night, each pulling ahead back and forth throughout the game. Mansfield won in the (almost literal) last second of the game, 53-51.

Oliver Ames had a good strategy against the Hornets. They focused on extending each possession by running the shot clock and denying Mansfield any momentuem offensively.

"I thought we played very very hard tonight," Oliver Ames head coach Don Byron said. "I thought that was our best 32 minutes of basketball we've played all year."

There were so many turnovers on both sides during the first period, keeping the score very low.

"OA had a very good gameplan and they executed it well," Mansfield head coach Michael Vaughan. "It caused us some serious problems. The style that they played, they took out 15 possessions. It's a hard gameplan to follow for a high school team and they executed it well."

At the end of the first period, the score was 11-9 Mansfield.

Mansfield scored 10 points in the first two minutes of the game, while OA only scored one basket. But OA woke up and started scoring, mainly because of  their senior all-star Nick Bruha.

"(Bruha had) 20 points in the first half... kind of speaks for itself," Vaughan said. "We ran four different defenders at him and he still had some success."

At the end of the half OA struck back and took the lead, 28-26.

The third period saw much of the same, ending at 48-44 Mansfield's favor, with consecutive three-point shots from Kevin Connor and Michael Hershman.

For about two minutes, neither team was able to make a basket. OA kept Mansfield in check, only allowing one basket during the start of the fourth period, and shooting up to take the lead with 52 seconds left in the game at 51-50.

"We had a rough patch on the offensive end last week and we snapped out of it," Byron said.

Mansfield tied the game on a foul shot at 46.8 seconds. With 2.2 seconds left in the game, Mansfield's Brian Hershman made a clutch jump shot for the last basket.

"We live and die with him and more than not he's going to step up and make a big play for you," Vaughan said.

Mansfield's scoring was pretty evenly distributed throughout the team. Brian Hershman led the pack at 12 points. Freshman Brendan Hill had nine points during the game. Not far behind with eight points were Rocky DeAndreade and Terrence O'Mara. Sophomore Kevin Conner scored six points, Gregory Romanko scored five and Michael Hershman scored a three pointer.

Bruha scored 23 points during the game, accounting for nearly half of OA's baskets.

"He really wanted this one," Byron said. "This was important to him."

OA's Jeff Babbit scored nine points, followed by Nick Cidado and John Moroney with six. Duane Johnson scored an impressive three-pointer and Ryan St. Clair and Andrew Reardon each scored a basket.

Mansfield (5-3) will be playing Attleboro on Tuesday. OA is now 5-3 and will play Canton at home on Tuesday.