Lebanon boys basketball holds off Pelham to capture D2 championship

EXETER – As the final seconds ticked away, Lebanon High School junior Nyeoti Punni was looking to celebrate with someone. Anyone.

His eyes were wide open, his hands in the air, Punni finally was able to do a jumping chest bump with fellow junior Braeden Falzarano. He fell to the floor, his arms still outstretched.

This time his teammates all came to him to celebrate. He’d earned it. They’d all earned it.

The Raiders survived a second-half comeback to defeat Pelham 40-33 and cap a 15-0 season with the Division II boys basketball championship, the fifth in program history, at Exeter High School on Saturday.

It was Punni’s free throws and layup midway through the fourth quarter that gave Lebanon the lead for good, and it was his defense guarding Pelham senior Zach Jones that kept the Pythons off balance all game.

“We knew that they ran most of their offense through him,” Punni said. “I knew that in order to win this game we had to limit him in some type of way. I had some early foul trouble, but I was able to stop him. Our game plan was to get in front of him and make sure he doesn’t get too many touches, and that’s what we did.”

Punni and company held Jones to nine points, far below his 17-point output in the semifinals against Sanborn.

With Jones flustered, the Pelham offense took a long time to find itself. The Raiders led 17-10 after halftime and opened up an 11-point lead in the third quarter. But a minute into the fourth quarter, Pelham took its first lead of the game.

“Coach (Kieth Matte) always said in practice that it’s going to be a grind it out game,” Lebanon senior Calvin Bates said. “In a timeout, he said defense is going to win the game. We knew coming in that maybe we weren’t going to shoot the lights out like we did against Laconia. It was defense that won us the game (Saturday).”

The teams swapped the lead four times in the fourth before Punni put the Raiders ahead for good. And Punni was one of a trio of juniors that carried the Raiders to the win.

Falzarano had a game-high 13 points, and Jackson Stone hit all four of his free throws in the final 40 seconds to put the game away.

“He’s an animal,” Punni said of Falzarano. “We give him the hardest job and to see him come out and own it was great to see. I’m just so proud of him and what he’s accomplished.”

The Python offense finally clicked in the third quarter, when Jake Dumont was finally able to free himself to get open looks. Dumont had eight of his team-high 12 points in the third quarter.

Jones pulled down 11 rebounds to go with his nine points, and Jake McGlinchey had six points and five boards for Pelham.

“From the moment the game started they were the more physical of the two teams,” Pelham coach Michael Larson said. “They pushed us around and pushed us off our spots, and it made us uncomfortable. We couldn’t get the looks that we wanted as a result.”

For Matte, having found a way to survive and thrive amid the pandemic made this the sweetest of championship victories.

“This is the hardest title to win,” Matte said. “We wore masks all year. We practiced when there were no games in sight. We continued to get better. I couldn’t be happier and prouder of my seniors. I’m as fortunate as you could be.”