LYNNFIELD — They made a game of it, but in the end, too many turnovers and an inability to hit from the outside spelled doom for the Lynnfield boys basketball team Tuesday night in a 61-54 loss to visiting Hamilton-Wenham.
The loss mathematically eliminated the Pioneers (7-11) from the tournament for a second season in a row.
For Hamilton-Wenham (12-5), the win was its 12th straight win and helped clinched a share of the Cape Ann League Baker Division title.
Senior captain Max Boustris and junior Jack Ford led the Pioneers with 16 points each, while senior captain Clay Marengi had 10 points and seven rebounds. Senior captain Khad Connell (four points) had a big day on the boards with 14 rebounds.
The Generals’ Ryan Hutchinson scored a game-high 22 points, eight of them in the fourth quarter to help put the game away.
“For the way we play, there aren’t a lot of negatives to take away tonight as we battled right to the end,” said Lynnfield coach Scott MacKenzie. “We tried to stagnate their offense by playing zone, but we ended up giving up too many jump shots on us. They just made more plays than we did. The bottom line is we were all responsible, from the top on down the lineup. Games like this I go home and don’t sleep thinking of the things I didn’t do right or thinking of what I should have done.”
Lynnfield committed seven turnovers in the first quarter and trailed 13-8. John Astrofsky, coming in off the bench, provided a spark early in the second quarter with back-to-back buckets (the latter a 3-pointer) to counter the Generals Ian Coffey, who hit three straight threes to extend the Generals’ lead to nine, 24-15 with four minutes left in the half. Still trailing by nine, 26-17, after Hamilton-Wenham converted off the Pioneers’ 10th turnover, Boustris closed out the half with a 3-pointer and steal and layup to cut the deficit to 26-22 at halftime.
The action was back and forth in the third quarter, which ended with the Generals on top, 42-39.
With three minutes left in the game, the Generals drained three straight treys bump their lead to 53-41. Twice the Pioneers got the lead down to six with possession, but that was as close as they came.
“When we were down in the fourth, the goal was to get it down to two possessions and we did that,” said MacKenzie. “We got lucky when they missed a few free throws, but they made three of four late to put it away.”
Blake Peters (three points) also scored for the Pioneers.
MacKenzie singled out the play of Boustris and Connell.
“Max and Khad did a great job for us,” he said. “Max is a 5’10” power forward and Khad is 6’2″ including his hair, so they are always matched up against bigger, stronger and longer kids, but I’d take them every night because they can go home knowing they left it out there. They really take pride in their respective roles.”
The Pioneers (7-11) are back in action Thursday (6:30) for Senior Night against Newburyport.
