Lebanon
The Lebanon High senior is no stranger to offensive outpourings, but he got off to a slow start this season by missing the first 12 games with a broken foot.
Matte broke out Monday with a season-high 25 points, helping the Raiders to a key 74-58 victory over Coe-Brown at Lang Metcalf Gymnasium.
The Raiders improved to 16-1 in NHIAA play (19-1 overall) and moved into a first-place tie with Milford in the Division II standings.
Matte, who scored 18 of his points in the fourth quarter, came into the contest averaging 12 per game.
“Definitely in my element,” Matte said. “I was just trying to let the game come to me, honestly, and my teammates did really good. They got me the ball in places that I could score.”
The damage Matte inflicted on the Bears (14-3) included five 3-pointers and a 6-for- 6 performance at the free-throw line.
Matte, who will play collegiate basketball next year at Maine’s Bowdoin College, said his foot is “sore, but getting better.”
The hosts also got a typical big night from Ryan Milliken (16 ppg), who added 20 points against Coe-Brown, a squad that entered Monday’s showdown as the division’s No. 3 seed.
Lebanon’s two big men, Chris Nulty and Matthew Eylander — underclassmen who came off the bench on senior night — both had strong performances. Nulty had nine points, while Eylander chipped in eight rebounds and eight points.
Nulty delivered back-to-back blocks on the same defensive possession for the Raiders with about 6 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. The huge momentum play followed an NBA-range 3-pointer by Matte that pushed the score to 47-36.
Lebanon, which led by as many as 20 points in the first half, saw its lead shrink to a mere five-point margin late in the third quarter. The Raiders went scoreless for the first 4 minutes of the third quarter until Eylander scored on a putback.
“We have to go back and watch (film) and analyze how we let these teams back in,” said Lebanon’s 20th-year coach, Kieth Matte. “I think it’s untimely turnovers, we lost some rebounds, transition baskets. They hurt us in a lot of ways and they’re good. They were 14-2 coming into this.”
Lebanon finishes its regular season on Friday at Bishop Brady (9-7). Milford has a Thursday tilt with Hollis Brookline (13-4) remaining on its schedule. The top two seeds in the NHIAA D-II tournament will receive preliminary-round byes.
“We’ve just got to win the next one to get the one seed for the tournament,” Nulty said. “It will be big to have that first-round bye, get to rest a little bit. We’ve got some guys that are really sick. We played well; it was good to have all our seniors play tonight and do well.”
Notes: Senior Night celebrated the high school playing days of Matte and Milliken along with Joshua Graham, Graham Chickering, Paul Slabinski and Noah Didehbani. The senior class has made three consecutive final four appearances. … A crowd-pleasing play came late in the second quarter when Hunter Bienvenu assisted a Slabinski layup with a silky-smooth behind-the-back bounce pass in transition. … Lebanon’s co-ed cheerleading team was honored before the game. … Senior hockey player Nate Gariepy, who recently reached the 100-point mark for his career, was honored along with his team during halftime. … Monday’s game — like many across the region during a disruptively winter season — was rescheduled from today to make way for the top-seeded Raider girls team (18-0 in NHIAA, 21-0 overall), which will host No. 16 Kennett in the first round of the Division II NHIAA tournament tonight.