Milford boys basketball holds off Souhegan

AMHERST – Jack Briggs and Drew Jepson have been leading the Milford High School boys basketball team in all aspects of the game.

Tuesday night against Souhegan, that included from the free throw line.

Briggs was 11 of 15 from the stripe and Jepson was 6 of 10 as the duo scored 17 points apiece to lead the Spartans to a 73-66 win over the Sabers.

Jepson also had four 3-pointers while Milford shot 24 of 38 from the free throw line, outscoring Souhegan (16 of 28) by eight points. Ryan Banuskevich added 11 points for the Spartans while Daniel Murray chipped in with 10.

“They’re setting things up,” Milford coach Dan Murray said. “When the ball moves, we’re a nice team. Kirk (Palladino) is setting up Drew on a lot of those shots, and he works well with Jack also. They’re starting to get a nice little rhythm. And (Banuskevich) is good and he makes plays. Offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds, he ended up with 11 points. He plays defense.”

It’s the second win in a row for Milford (2-0) over Souhegan (0-2), going back to last year, as the Spartans have gotten off to their best start since winning the Division II title in 2011.

“That’s a pretty good basketball team he’s got there,” Souhegan coach Peter Pierce said of Milford. “We just couldn’t quite really play our style. We played their style and that’s hard because he can spread the floor and we don’t spread the floor well.

“If we learn to execute our stuff a little bit better, then we can get different people on the floor. The situation in the game didn’t allow me to go to what I really wanted to do. It seemed like it was eight (points) forever. We couldn’t get past it.”

Souhegan got out to an early lead, but Milford went on a 10-0 run in the first quarter and led 14-9 going into the second. The Spartans were able to push the lead to as many as 10 points, but the Sabers cut it to 33-25 at halftime.

The Sabers scored the first points of the second half, but Milford was able to push the lead to 11 points in the third. A 3-pointer by Tom Stover with 8.4 seconds left in the quarter made it an eight-point game again going into the fourth.

That’s when it became a battle of free throws, with the teams combining to shoot 36 attempts in the final eight minutes. A pair by Isaac Nevrla got Souhegan within 66-60 with 1:37 to play, but Banuskevich and Jepson combined to go 5 of 8 to give Milford enough of a cushion.

“We fouled too much,” Murray said. “We kept giving them easy free throws. Defensively, we can play with them and do a nice job, but letting them go to the foul line is a killer.”

Stover led the Sabers with 12 points while Jerrell Webster added 11 and Alex Hill had nine.

“They took 38 free throws,” Pierce said. “That’s a lot for a high school basketball game and they made 24. That’s a pretty good percentage. You play the game with your feet. That’s how you’re supposed to play. You’ve got to be able to defend three or four ballhandlers and we have a difficult time doing that.”