Conant boys basketball holds off Berlin to return to D3 final

MANCHESTER – The Conant High School boys basketball team will play in Sunday’s Division III championship game, and ultimately, that’s all that matters to coach Eric Saucier.

But it certainly wasn’t the way he envisioned the Orioles making it back to the title game for the second year in a row.

No. 2 Conant trailed No. 3 Berlin by five points at halftime, rallied to take the lead in the third and nearly saw its season end twice in the final four seconds of a 39-38 win Friday in the semifinals at Southern New Hampshire University.

“I’m not proud, I’ll take luck any day,” Saucier said. “This game is over. I don’t care how we did it, but we did it. We’ve got to improve if we want to get to where we want to go on Sunday.”

The Mountaineers (18-3) were down three when Tommy Gallagher hit two free throws to make a one-point game with 43 seconds left.

Berlin sent Conant’s Robert O’Brien to the free throw line for a one-and-one, but the Orioles (18-2) senior, who had hurt his shoulder moments earlier, missed the first. Josh Degrenier grabbed the rebound, but stepped out of bounds, giving the ball back to Berlin with 35 seconds left.

After a timeout, the Mountaineers ran the clock down and Gallagher got to the basket for an uncontested layup. The shot was off the mark and a jump ball was called with five-tenths of a second left, giving Berlin another chance.

The Mountaineers got the play they need, as Nick Fodor had an uncontested tip-in, but his shot rimmed out and Conant celebrated.

“I heard the buzzer, but I thought there might be time and I saw it was their possession,” Saucier said. “I thought OK, and I told them don’t let them slip to the basket and get a tip in because that’s all they can do and they got a good look.”

Despite that final play, Saucier felt his team played solid defense for most of the second half, holding Berlin to 16 points on 6-of-20 shooting from the field.

“We knew what they ran, we watched film and I thought we played great,” Saucier said. “Our goal is to hold them to under 40 and usually, if we hold someone to 40, we’re going to be all right. We didn’t make shots, we were passive on the offensive end.”

O’Brien finished with a game-high 16 points and Eli Hodgson added 11 points and six rebounds, but both missed out on opportunities at the end to give Conant more breathing room.

With the Orioles up 35-33, O’Brien stole the ball and had no one between him and the basket, but missed a dunk that would have made it a four-point game. Moments later, Hodgson was called for an offensive foul, his fifth of the game, with 2:24 to play.

Conant’s younger players stepped up at the free throw line down the stretch. Degrenier made two free throws with 1:16 left that put the Orioles ahead 37-34, but Berlin answered right back with a layup by Quinn Morrissette.

Then, with the Mountaineers trying to foul, Ryan Richard was called for a block on O’Brien. Both players went to the ground, and the collision left O’Brien writhing in pain.

Saucier turned to C.J. Bilodeau to take the free throws for O’Brien and the sophomore made them both to make it 39-36 with 1:00 to go.

“If you would have asked me last year, the last guy I would have put in there would have been him,” Saucier said. “I treat guy 14 like I treat guy one. I get on each of them because you never know when you’re going to need them. Those guys stepped up.”

Conant will now face No. 5 Campbell, which knocked off No. 1 Hopkinton 56-51, in a rematch of last year’s championship game.