WEST CANAAN — With 2.2 seconds remaining in Tuesday night’s game, Mascoma High boys basketball coach Silas Ayres called a timeout to sketch up one final chance for the No. 7 seed Royals.
Down by a point and with the season on the line, he kept it simple.
Ben Schwarz took out the ball in front of the Mascoma bench at Edward P. Kehoe Gymnasium on the inbounds play. When Schwarz was supposed to be looking for an open Ben Seiler, he found a drifting Hunter Stewart, who caught the ball and drove the baseline for an easy layup.
Final: Mascoma 54, No. 10 Monadnock 53. Pandemonium followed as the Royals’ student body — all clad in black — chased Stewart and his teammates around the court following their NHIAA Division III first-round victory.
“Obviously, our first option was to go to Ben,” said Ayres, the first-year bench boss. “So I had our big guy just roll to the hoop after setting the screen.
“It worked. It worked.”
Tuesday night wasn’t a back-and-forth battle for Mascoma (14-7, 13-6 NHIAA) until the fourth quarter. No, it dug itself into a 13-point halftime hole and had to throw the dirt back in with haste.
Inside the locker room at the half, Ayres knew he needed his team to start the third quarter fast, so he equipped a diamond press to slow down the Huskies’ transition offense, which had been hurting Mascoma throughout the first half.
The change worked efficiently, specifically on Monadnock guard Kevin Putnam, who scored 17 of his 23 points in the first half. Designed not to trap the offense but to stymie it at midcourt, the Royals turned Monadnock (11-8) giveaways into quick baskets.
Mascoma outscored the visitors, 19-10, in the third quarter, thanks to 13 of Seiler’s 31 points coming in the period. Still, the Royals trailed, 40-36, entering the fourth period.
“I challenged them to get it to five, and we had it to four by the end of the third quarter,” said Ayres, who was soaking wet postgame due to locker room celebrations. “After that, I told them we’re going to win this ballgame. I challenged them to stand and fight.”
A Connor Thompson layup in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter cut the Huskies’ lead to two points, but they answered with a jumper. Almost three minutes of scoreless basketball followed, but a Thompson pass down low to Hawk Shawn tied the game at 42-42.
Monadnock lost possession due to a held ball after Shawn’s make, and this time Thompson drove to the hoop to give the Royals their first lead of the game. Thompson finished the night with 12 points, thanks to his six points in the final quarter.
Seiler was all by himself at the top right of the arc with 2 minutes, 13 seconds to play and knocked down the 3-pointer to give Mascoma a 47-44 lead.
Free throws gave them a larger cushion, but Monadnock scored six points in a 27-second span in the closing minute to take a 53-52 lead headed into Ayres’ timeout.
“I’m still just kind of speechless,” he said.
The last time Mascoma won a playoff game, Seiler was an 11-year-old in middle school. Mascoma’s win was the first since the 2014 postseason, when it defeated Laconia at home in the first round.
On Tuesday night, Seiler tied his season scoring high and added four 3-pointers.
Whenever Mascoma needed a basket, it turned to the sophomore, who leads D-III in scoring with 22.9 points per game.
The Royals will have a chance to get to the semifinals for the first time since 2011 on Friday night when they travel to New Ipswich, N.H., to take on No. 2 Mascenic, to which they lost to in overtime, 77-62, on Jan. 28.
“Ever since we were young, we’ve been looking up to high school,” Seiler said.
“It’s always been the playoffs and maybe win the first game. We want more.”
Pete Nakos can be reached at pnakos@vnews.com.
Correction
The Mascoma High boys basketball team was t railing Monadnock by one point when Hunter Stewart scored a game-winning layup in the final two seconds of play. An earlier version of this story misstated Monadnock’s lead at the time.