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Pelham runs past Kingwood in first round

Wednesday, March, 09 By Jeff Hamrick

PELHAM — A killer instinct is a great thing to have at this stage of the season. And the Pelham boys showed off that commodity in the first round of the Division II state tournament.

Unable to put away visiting Kingswood Regional through three quarters despite outstanding shooting, the fourth-seeded Pythons needed less than 4 minutes to turn a 10-point advantage into a 22-point lead. When the onslaught was over, Pelham advanced to the semifinals with a 74-58 victory over the ninth-seeded Knights.

“For three quarters, we didn’t stop what we knew they were going to do the whole time,” First-year Pelham coach Matt Regan said. “Then in the fourth quarter we manned up and didn’t allow those easy baskets ... We knew they were tired in that fourth quarter.”

With Derek Defranzo leading the way with three of his six steals, Pelham (17-5) forced turnovers on each of Kingswood’s first six possessions of the fourth and seven of its first 10. Defranzo came up huge the final period, adding four assists and four points as Pelham converted seven of its first 11 field-goal attempts in the stanza.

“That’s what we ask him to do,” Regan said of Defranzo, who finished with 12 points, five assists and six steals. “He’s a defender and a distributor. It’s nice when he scores 14, 15, 16 points, but we need him playing defense and getting the basketball spread around.”

Pelham also saw the return of leading scorer Stephen Spirou, who had missed the previous four and half games with a lower ankle sprain.

“He was rusty tonight, but over the couple days, he’ll be back in game shape,” Regan said. “He usually plays 32 minutes, but he couldn’t do that tonight. But that’s to be expected not having played for a couple weeks.”

The senior forward, who entered the game averaging 23.1 points a game, had 16 against Kingswood (9-10) despite missing stretches with foul trouble. He was 6 of 15 from the floor with six rebounds and three assists.

“It was a little weird at first,” Spirou said. “It was my first game back, so it was a little tough to get back.”
Pelham opened the game on fire, scoring 25 first-quarter points on 10 of 17 shooting. The Pythons made six of their final six shots of the period and eight of their last 10, including 4 of 4 from 3-point land. The Knights, however, remained within striking distance, cutting a 12-point deficit early in the second to four 72 seconds into the third.

Brett Bailey was one of four Pythons in double figures scoring a game-high 17 and Dean Joyce chipped in with 12 in addition to Spirou and Defranzo.

In Saturday’s 7 p.m. quarterfinal, the Pythons play host to No. 12 Oyster River (12-7) who upset second-seeded Goffstown 79-63. Pelham defeated Oyster River 66-62 on Jan. 25.