Claremont
With a loud and nearly full house on hand and the play on the floor that at times looked like rugby, it was the outside work of Drew Grenier and the inside play of Luke Come that paced Stevens to its first win after two season-opening losses.
While Grenier paced the Stevens scorers with 17 points, it was the senior’s assist that was the dagger to the heart. Stevens was holding a tenuous 52-46 lead with less than a minute to play when Grenier drove the lane and made a behind-the-back pass to Come (15 points), who laid it in and put the game Tigers down for the count.
It was an uphill battle all night for the Tigers (1-1) as they hit a cold spell near the end of the second quarter and spent the night clawing back but never got closer than five points in the second half.
All of which disappointed Newport coach Greg Pickering.
“It’s always tough to play from behind,” he said.
Newport was coming off an impressive 67-43 win over Newfound last week, but the Tigers could not find consistent offense on Monday night.
“You know we were hesitant and a little sluggish in the first half, and then there were times we shot too quick and we were slow to rotate,” Pickering said.
The game began to move in Stevens’ direction late in the second quarter.
Stevens held a 20-18 lead with 4:03 to go before the half. The Cardinals got 3-pointers from Josh Stithen, Grenier and Ethan Johnson and closed out the half on an 11-3 run for a 31-21 lead at the break.
One edge that surprised both Stevens coach Matt Baird-Torney and Pickering was the rebounding.
“Yeah, we did rebound well,” said Baird-Torney. “We’ve got some seniors, but they are inexperienced seniors, and I think they handled themselves well, considering it was the home opener and the big crowd.”
“I don’t know what happened there,” Pickering said. “We had a height advantage.”
Newport got a 23-point night from junior Cameron Gillespie who, until recently, lived in Nashua. Gillespie was coming off a 28-point game in the opener at Newfound, but he was the only Tiger in double figures on Monday night.
Newport got the first four points in the second half but could never put a sustained scoring run together. Stevens answered right back and held a 43-31 lead after three quarters. The Tigers appeared ready to make a charge three times in the fourth quarter, getting the deficit down to six points before Grenier executed his behind-the-back pass as the Cardinals hung on. The Cards employed a zone defense that seemed to bother the Tigers.
“We saw a zone in Newfound too,” said Pickering, “but tonight, we didn’t rotate well.”
Stevens will stay home for a Wednesday night game with Franklin. Newport goes to Hillsboro-Deering on Thursday night.