NORTHAMPTON — Northampton boys basketball coach Rey Harp is going to learn a lot about his team early in the season.
And the Blue Devils are going to learn a lot about themselves along the way.
Such was the case on Wednesday night, as Northampton settled in over the course of the night against rival Amherst to snag its first win of the season.
While the action was frantic, the Blue Devils executed down the stretch buoyed by the duo of Eli Reid and Brayden Nichols-Staples. The juniors combined for 29 points to help Northampton pick up a 59-50 victory in Valley Wheel action at Feiker Gymnasium.
It was the first win of the season for the Blue Devils (1-1 overall, 1-0 Valley Wheel), while Amherst suffered its first loss (2-1, 1-1).
“There were a couple times in the second half where I thought we started to execute a little bit and was hoping we’d run away a little bit,” explained Harp. “I thought, ‘hey, if we’re good and we’re lucky, then this is going to be the time.’ But Amherst is good. Amherst gives us problems and forces turnovers. They put good ball pressure on, they were rebounding really well, and we knew that game wasn’t done until the very end.”
Little separated the two teams for much of the night. Neither team led by more than three points over the course of the entire first half, as Northampton took a 22-20 advantage into intermission.
A three-point play from Nichols-Staples made it 31-24 early in the third quarter, but seemingly every time Northampton made a little run, Amherst had an answer. Mitchell Carey and Samuel Woodruff scored back-to-back hoops and the Hurricanes were right back within shouting distance.
The lead was just 45-41 entering the fourth quarter after Chris Camara (11 points) hit a jumper right before the third quarter buzzer, but Northampton received a couple of big 3-pointers from Nathan Lupert and Henry Callan early in the final period to stay in front.
Carey was fouled shooting a 3-pointer and made all three from the free throw line to keep Amherst within 51-48 with 3:48 remaining, but Northampton closed the game on an 8-2 run to seal the deal. Isaiah Brown scored all four of his points during the final 3:30, finishing a pair of layups to go with some hard-nosed rebounding and solid defending from the junior center.
“It’s a young team. I have a lot of guys who haven’t been in this [type of] game before,” Harp said. “The guys who’ve been there haven’t been in this position before, haven’t been in the position [where] they played for us before.
“We had guys step up. Nathan Lupert played great out there for us at both ends, knocking big shots down for us in the first half, and certainly making plays in the second half. We had some big baskets out there. Of course, Eli and Brayden are guys that picked us up and put us on their shoulders.”
Lupert hit four 3-pointers and finished with 13 points in the win, giving Northampton a much-needed offensive boost in a game where points were hard to come by.
Carey led Amherst with 16 points, followed by Woodruff with 15 and Camara with 11. Carlos Eliel Vazquez added eight for the ’Canes, which took down South Hadley and Minnechaug to open the season before Wednesday’s loss.
Northampton opened with Holyoke and next turns its attention to South Hadley on Friday night. It’s a tough start to the slate for the Devils, but Harp expects his side to grow through the challenges.
“This is us finding out who we are,” he said. “This game was us finding out who we can be, I should say. We’ve got to do that again. To open up a season with three teams who are going to be competing for Western Mass. positioning, we start off with three good teams and that’s not even looking at the space after that. We have to get ready for a tough South Hadley team next, and we thought that was one of the best teams on our schedule when we started off the season.”
The Valley Wheel should be very competitive this winter, as all six teams — Northampton, Amherst, Minnechaug, Longmeadow, Springfield International and Sci-Tech — are capable of raising a banner come March.
“You have six teams, and if you pick a favorite, I’ll pick a different one, and we’ll see what happens,” Harp offered. “I mean, there’s six teams and we could be first, we could be sixth, and I think everybody’s saying basically the same thing. It’s a tough league. It’s competitive.”
Amherst hosts Sci-Tech on Monday in its final game before the Christmas break.
