Hollis Brookline basketball hangs on to defeat Campbell

NASHUA – Pat Roye knew his Campbell High School boys basketball team was in trouble Wednesday before it even took the floor at the Chick-fil-A Holiday Tournament at Nashua South.

A bug has been going around the team, coming off a close loss to two-time defending champion Thornton Academy, the Cougars looked flat in their morning shoot around. Going against a Hollis Brookline team that had been embarrassed the night before, Roye warned his team it would be facing an angry bunch of Cavaliers.

The negative premonitions came true, as HB overcame a Campbell run in the third quarter and pulled away at the end for a 56-45 win. The Cavs will face Division II rival Souhegan in the tournament’s fifth-place game at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, while Campbell will take on Milford in the seventh-place game at 3.

While it was a somewhat disappointing loss for Campbell, the game marked a complete turnaround for HB from it’s 31-point loss to South the night before.

“A lot more disciplined with what we do,” Cavs coach Mike Soucy said. “We stuck to our principals a lot better. Not perfectly, but better. Offensively we were much more disciplined. We took the right shot rather than the first shot. That makes all the difference in the world. We’re not a prolific scoring team, so we need to be more patient when we’re not in transition.”

PJ Flaum led the way for HB, scoring 15 points, including three 3-pointers. James Wilson added 12 points and Mike Chase had 10 as the Cavs used a 12-5 run at the end of the second quarter to lead 27-19 at halftime.

But Campbell came back in the to open the third, tying the game at 31 on a layup by Max Gouveia (1o points) and taking a 33-31 lead on a jump shot by Jacob Morgan (10 points). The lead wouldn’t last long as HB answered with a 9-2 run to go up by five at the end of the quarter.

A free throw by Morgan with 7:29 to play made it 40-36 HB, but the Cavs scored seven of the next eight points, six of which came on 3s by Flaum, to take a 10-point lead.

“When we came out at the beginning of the third with a little hop, we came back and took control of the game, but then we gased out again,” Roye said. “We really didn’t show up and you’ve got to credit Hollis. We told our kids they better be ready because (HB) is angry. Turnovers continue to haunt us, but mostly it was emotion and heart. Hopefully we learned that lesson.”

For the first time this season, the Cavs handled adversity well and Soucy hopes that means they’re taking the next step.

“It’s not something we’ve handled well up to this point, so maybe they’re turning the corner with that now,” he said. “I told them I was proud that not only were we able to maintain the lead, but we were able to build it out to the biggest we had all game. I was really proud of that effort.”