RallyNorth.net

Methuen cranks up postseason offense

Monday, February, 27 By Jeff Hamrick

METHUEN – The Rangers from Methuen opened postseason play last night on a much better note than they ended the regular season six days earlier.

The 15^th-seeded Rangers advanced to the first round of the Division 1 North Sectional for the third time in four years with a convincing 67-48 victory over 18^th-seeded Malden last night.

Less than a week after falling behind by 16 points in the first half against Greater Lawrence in what eventually became Methuen’s worst loss of the season, the Rangers came out firing against visiting Malden (10-11).

With six different players scoring at least two points, Methuen (13-8) opened a 17-point advantage less than 7 minutes into the first quarter.

“I’m not making any excuses (for the Greater Lawrence loss),” first-year Methuen coach Matt Curran said. “(The Reggies) came in with a great game plan, and honestly, they were playing to get into the tournament and we were already in. But I think we learned from that. We didn’t come out the way we were supposed to, and I was glad to see how we came out (last night).”

The Rangers continuously broke Malden’s press in the early going, and had 12 layups in the opening quarter. That more than made up for the Golden Tornados dominance on the offensive board. Malden had eight offensive rebounds in the first period and 20 in the game. But despite shooting 15 fewer field goals (51-66), the Rangers made seven more shots (25-18) than the visitors.

Leading the offensive surge were Nathan Bueno, Ryan Freeman and Kyle Mansour. Each of that power trio scored 17 points. In addition, Freeman added nine rebounds, four assists and four blocks. Sixth man Mark Sicard also did a nice job directing the flow with six assists off the bench.

But it was Bueno’s defense that provided the biggest boost. The stopper all year in Methuen’s man-to-man, Bueno was assigned Malden junior Terrance Maironneure, who brought an 18.9 point-per-game average into the postseason. The 5-10 Bueno held the 6-1 Maironneure to only three points, none in the first half. The Tornado sharpshooter made just one of his 10 field-goal attempts.

“Early in the year … I knew he could play defense, but I didn’t know how good he could be,” Curran said of his junior guard. “That kid (Maironneure) had been scoring and scoring (in the regular season) and all week we prepped for him. So, (Bueno) did a phenomenal job.”

Methuen, which suffered six of its eight losses to teams seeded 12^th or higher in the North sectional and five to teams seeded eighth or higher, now heads to second-seeded Acton-Boxborough for Thursday’s 7 p.m. first-round encounter.

“We’ll have to take care of the ball,” Curran said. “At times (last night) we did get careless with the ball. Obviously they’re very, very good, and they’re big. They’re 19-1 for a reason. I think we just have to come out and play like we’ve been playing the second half of the year when we had some pretty good wins.”