BELCHERTOWN — ‘The Brice Letendre Show’ was on full display in the second half Friday night.
The Belchertown junior forward scored 16 points in the third quarter of the Orioles’ independent game against Commerce, showcasing a variety of moves in the post while also bullying his way to the free throw line. All told, Letendre finished with 25 of his career-high 38 points after halftime as Belchertown secured a key 74-54 victory on Senior Night.
The win helped the Orioles improve to 7-6 overall, as they continue their pursuit of securing a .500 or better record to punch a ticket to the MIAA Division III tournament.
“Brice had a good game and they didn’t have a guy that could stop him underneath,” lauded Belchertown coach Jim Hart. “And so he’s old school. He’s like a pivot foot, up and under kind of guy. He does a good job for us. He’s been pretty reliable every single time he’s on the floor.”
The 38 points toppled Letendre’s previous career-high of 37, set last year in a win over Hoosac Valley.
Commerce coach Tyrell Springer said his team hadn’t seen too many interior players like Letendre this season.
“Usually we play a lot more guard-heavy teams so this was a little different,” said Springer. “(Letendre is) super athletic. They did a good job executing all their stuff through him.”
Belchertown led 35-28 at halftime, but Commerce (9-4) cut into the deficit thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers from Gerrimonte James (11 points) that made it 37-34 with 6:58 left in the third quarter.
That set the stage for Letendre. He scored 14 of the next 23 points for the Orioles in the period, helping the hosts on an 11-0 run that opened things up and put Belchertown in command.
“We wanted to feed him because they weren’t getting to stop him,” said Hart of Letendre. “We changed up a little where we were running the ball through him so instead of him getting the ball at the foul line, he’d get the ball in the post. And then when we got (Shea MacLean the ball) at the foul line, every time he would drive, he was to look for the guy rolling. And so we just did a little bit tweaking on our offense.”
The lead was 60-44 after three quarters, and the Orioles took care of business down the stretch to secure the decisive victory.
Commerce, which was led Ja’mere Collins (19 points) and Nazic Maisonet (15 points), was playing without its top two leading scorers in Brandon Smith and Angel Torres. Both are averaging right around 20 points per game, and while they were sidelined with injuries, Springer hopes to have them both back soon. The Raiders are one win away from securing an automatic berth into the Division III tourney.
“Right now, we’re just adjusting because they’re not used to playing without them,” Springer said of his team. “We’re down two top 20 scorers in Western Mass., that’s 40-something points right there and it shows. So right now this is an adjustment. I’m not mad because it’s a learning place for us, we’d rather now than later in the season.”
MacLean (11 points) and Jake Pacunas (10) joined Letendre in double figures for the Orioles, who won their second game in a row following a three-game losing streak.
“They were 9-3 coming in and they had some good wins, and some of their losses were really close. So you knew they were going to give us a run for their money,” Hart said of Commerce. “We limited our turnovers, which we’ve been doing lately, and that was a focus. Against Westfield, we had like 13 turnovers, but the game before that against East Longmeadow we didn’t have our full team and we had like 24 turnovers. So you’ve got to take care of the ball. That was kind of our message in practice, you’ve got to value the ball and play defense.
“And so our thing was, our record is 7-0 when we keep teams under 60 points. So we’re trying to get that there. At one of the timeouts, we said, ‘let’s keep them under 60, and let’s try to really take pride in that.’ We played good, hard defense and we rebounded the ball pretty good.”
Next up for Belchertown is a key Suburban South road game at Chicopee, while Commerce heads to Duggan Academy looking to punch a state tournament ticket with a win. Both games are set for Tuesday night.
