Boys' Basketball Routs Stoneham 67-34

The boys’ basketball team kept pace in the tight Middlesex League standings Friday with a 67-34 win over visiting Stoneham.

The Tanners jumped out to a 17-4 lead at the end of the first quarter, thanks to 7-0 and 10-0 runs in the period, and further distanced themselves in the third quarter with another 10-0 run to go up 45-17 near the end of the frame.

With his team on top 9-2 midway through the first, point guard Mickel Simpson led the early charge, scoring eight consecutive points.

Simpson, a senior, added four more points in the third-quarter run. He led all scorers with 16 points in the game and had 11 rebounds.

With Simpson and senior Brandon Daughtrey, 10 points and five assists, working the outside, senior big man Bill Claflin controlled the post with 15 points and eight boards.

The win keeps third-place Woburn (5-4, 5-3) in the hunt with second-place Winchester, and Lexington, Burlington, Wakefield and Reading, all of whom have three league losses. The Tanners host Winchester at 2:30 p.m. on Monday.

“We did what we had to do,” Woburn coach Tom Sullivan said. “Stoneham is a scrappy team; they fought hard.”

Seniors Mike Sallese, five points and five rebounds, and Shane Galvin, five points, also started for the Tanners, while junior Matt Littleton, five points, played big minutes off the bench.

In the fourth quarter, Woburn went on a 13-0 run to end the game, capped off by an Andrew Alicea dunk at the buzzer to make the final 67-34.