Lebanon boys basketball returns to D2 final with win over Hollis Brookline

DURHAM – Ryan Milliken did not want to see the Lebanon High School boys basketball team’s season come to an end.

So when Hollis Brookline got within two points early in the second quarter, the senior guard took over.

Milliken scored 11 straight points for the No. 1 Raiders to help them take a 12-point lead into halftime, and Lebanon did just enough in the second half to keep that lead on the way to a 50-36 win over the No. 4 Cavaliers in the Division II semifinals on Wednesday.

[Don’t forget to order your copy of the 2017 NH-HighSchoolSports.com Basketball Yearbook!]

For the second year in a row, Lebanon will play for the Division II title, as it will face No. 3 Coe-Brown at noon on Saturday at the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gym.

Against the Cavs, it was Milliken leading the way, as the D2 Player of the Year scored a game-high 21 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field, while Graham Chickering added nine points and KJ Matte had seven.

“We have guys who can step up,” Lebanon coach Kieth Matte said. “Just throughout the course of this year, we’ve had guys who have starred, so I’m not worried about anyone stepping up offensively. We’ll come out here and guard and rebound.

“(Milliken) is really getting it now and he’s a competitor. The big floor makes such a difference for him. That extra space, he’s going to run by you, and he ran by a couple of kids the way you’re not going to be able to on a high school floor. He’s fast, but he also plays super hard, too. That’s not just being fast, that’s being intense.”

That first-half lead helped the Raiders (19-1) overcome a tough second half in which they shot 25 percent from the floor and went the final 5:12 of the game without a field goal.

But while the offense struggled, Lebanon was able to make up for it on defense and rebounding.

“Not getting destroyed on the board by that team is doing a good job,” Matte said. “They’re monsters. They’re bigger at just about every spot. I was pleased with that.”

Matt Simco led HB (15-6) with 20 points and seven rebounds, but only four other players scored points for the Cavs. While the junior forward was 8 of 12 from the field, the rest of the team was 5 of 24, and the Raiders outrebounded HB 26-22.

“They really got into help (defense) to try to take (Matt) Simco and Matt Dowling away,” HB coach Mike Soucy said. “Unfortunately, for us, the ball didn’t move as quickly as we needed to. If we had moved it quicker from side to side, we might have had more open looks or drives or post touches. The ball stalled way too much, especially in the first half.”

The Cavs fell behind 11-4 in the first quarter, but a 3-pointer by Nick Fothergill with 20 seconds left in the frame got HB within four, and a putback by Simco made it a two-point game five seconds into the second quarter.

And that’s when Milliken took over, answering that basket with one of his own to make it 13-9. Simco scored on another putback at the other end, but Milliken scored on back-to-back layups to give Lebanon a 17-11 lead.

Fothergill responded with a basket but after two Lebanon offensive rebounds, Milliken converted a pass from Christopher Nulty. A missed jumper at the other end by HB led to a 3-pointer from Milliken, and the Raiders led 22-13, when the Cavs took a timeout.

“Especially when they started making that run, I didn’t want to lose the game,” Milliken said. “I want to play for a championship, especially after (losing to Portsmouth) last year.”

A 3-pointer at the buzzer by Noah Didehbani gave Lebanon a 29-17 lead at halftime and the Raiders held that led for most of the third quarter.

Simco hit a shot at the buzzer to end the third and opened the fourth with another basket to make it an eight-point game. The Cavs got the lead down to seven points on a jumper by Scott VanCoughnett with 4:53 to play, but HB went nearly four minutes without scoring, while the Raiders final nine points came from the free throw line.

“We were running uphill the entire game,” Soucy said. “We’d get it to seven with the ball, and we would turn it over and take a bad shot, and then they’d come down and score. It was challenging for us. We never gained any traction. Give them all the credit in the world for that.”

Lebanon will be looking for its first title on Saturday since 1998, when it won the Class I championship.