Durham, n.h.
Leave it to the state’s D-II player of the year to make up for his mistakes.
Milliken stepped back and fired a 3-pointer at the buzzer, silencing the raucous Coe-Brown crowd, to give the top-ranked Lebanon (23-1 overall, 18-1 league) all the momentum it needed for a 59-42 D-II championship victory, the Raiders’ first since 1998 and second under head coach Kieth Matte.
Milliken followed it up with another 3-pointer in the opening possession of the fourth period. Lebanon outscored the Bears, 25-13, in the final stanza.
“If they made their run going into the fourth quarter, it was going to be really hard to stop,” Milliken said. “I knew, with 5 seconds left coming down with the ball, I had to make a big play. It just felt really nice coming out of my hands, and it just fell in.
“That gave me a lot of confidence going into the fourth quarter,” Milliken added. “It kind of put a dagger in them. They weren’t expecting that at all.”
Matte, now in his 20th season with the Raiders, displayed a mix of emotions in the middle of the on-court celebration after the game. Before Saturday, Matte’s teams had amassed an 89-17 record against NHIAA opponents since the 2012-13 season and had nothing to show for it, at least not in the hardware sense. That changed on Saturday.
“This is such a special group of kids,” said Matte, who reiterated his intention to return to the team next season despite his son K.J.’s impending graduation in May. “You look at their four-year record, their record at home is like 42-2. … I’m glad that (the boys) get to say that we won it our senior year. Besides that, I’m just sad that there’s no practice tomorrow.”
Lebanon, whose girls basketball team won the NHIAA D-II title eight days earlier, becomes the first D-II school to own both the girls and boys basketball championship plaques in the same year since Con-Val’s teams swept in 1994. The win was the Lebanon boys’ fifth in program history.
Saturday’s championship win felt like a sigh of relief for the Raiders, who made their second consecutive trip to the finals, having fallen to Portsmouth a year ago. Lebanon, one of the season’s D-II favorites following Portsmouth’s departure to D-I, entered the game on a seven-game winning streak against Coe-Brown dating back to 2011.
Still, offense didn’t always come easily for the Raiders.
Lebanon shot 8-for-21 from the floor in the first half. It wasn’t as if its shooters couldn’t get open — the Raiders found plenty of space, but nothing fell.
Meanwhile, Coe-Brown was hitting its free throws. The Bears, who managed only two field goals in the first 16 minutes, were 12-for-12 at the line by halftime to stay within striking distance. Lebanon led, 21-16, at halftime thanks to a 8-0 run midway through the second quarter.
Matte said he was confident that his team’s shots would land eventually.
“We were getting great looks,” Matte said. “You kind of have to evaluate what (Coe-Brown’s) looks looked like, what ours looked like. I was really happy with that. … We had fantastic opportunities. It’s tough to shoot here. There’s no adjustments really to make. Just got to come out the same way, and we did.
“If you coach basketball long enough, you know it’s a numbers game,” he said. “If you get good looks, you eventually do OK. But there was a lot of anxiety, no doubt about it.”
Lebanon junior Chris Nulty, a transfer from Hartford High, went wild in the third quarter, scoring eight straight points to give the Raiders some breathing room. When Coe-Brown answered, cutting the lead to two, Milliken’s 3-pointers, one at the buzzer and one in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, served, as he said, “the dagger” — the beginning of the end for the Bears.
Milliken finished with a game-high 23 points. Inside men Nulty (14 points, five rebounds) and Matt Eylander (12 points, four rebounds) were also crucial in the game for the Raiders.
For Nulty, this season has been like a dream. It took some time to adjust to his new teammates and to Lebanon’s fast-break offense. But Nulty acclimated to his new team seamlessly.
“I play (AAU hoops) with those guys,” Nulty said. “They were all really welcoming. I know all the guys. I love them. … I made a lot of really good friends. It’s been a really good year.
“At Hartford, we didn’t make it past the first round. This is awesome. This is crazy.”
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.