Milford, Thornton Academy boys basketball pick up wins at Chick-Fil-A Holiday Tournament

NASHUA – It didn’t take long for the Milford High School basketball team to figure out how to finish off a close game.

One day after watching Nashua South pull away late for a win in the Chick-Fil-A Holiday Tournament, the Spartans did it themselves, going on a 10-0 run to end Tuesday’s 44-34 win over Hollis Brookline.

The win means Milford will face Thornton Academy in the fifth-place game Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Nashua South. Thornton managed to hold off Souhegan for a 65-58 win on Tuesday.

Drew Jepson came off the bench to lead Milford with 13 points, 10 of which came in the fourth quarter, while Jack Briggs added 12 points and Ryan Banuskevich had eight. Each had a pair of 3-pointers, as the Spartans made seven as a team.

“(Jepson) came in off the bench and improved things with his defensive rebounding and his 3s,” Milford coach Dan Murray said. “He was improving the offense and was smart with the ball. We executed well on defense at the end.”

The defense was strong at the beginning for Milford as well. After HB scored the first basket, the Spartans outscored the Cavaliers 13-0 over the rest of the first quarter and stretched that lead to 18-2 with 4:19 remaining in the half.

HB didn’t score again until a layup by Tyler Pepin with 3:52 to go in the second quarter, and that basket ended a stretch of more than 16 minutes in which the Cavs scored just two points, dating back to Monday’s game against Goffstown.

Pepin’s basket woke the HB offense, as the Cavs closed the half with a 10-0 run to trail 18-12 at the break. Milford was able to get the lead back to eight early in the second half, but HB’s defense forced the Spartans into mistakes and the Cavs took advantage of some of those opportunities to pull within 22-21 with 26.2 seconds remaining in the third.

Milford went ahead 34-26 thanks to two 3s by Jepson and another by Banuskevich in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, but the Cavs scored eight straight, tying the game at 34 on a jumper by Trevor Bowler with 2:58 to play.

But like Monday, when HB took a 34-31 lead over Goffstown in the fourth, the Cavs wouldn’t score the rest of the way.

The Spartans retook the lead on a basket by Briggs and Milford made 6 of 7 free throws in the final 40 seconds to secure the win.

“We ran early in the first quarter, which was nice,” Murray said. “They defended the drive better and they shut us down in the halfcourt. It was a very physical game, which made it hard to get outlet passes. Our role players came in and gave us a nice game, and so did our starters.”

Matt Fothergill led HB with 10 points and Bowler had eight.

In the other consolation game, Thornton got out to a 22-7 lead at the end of the first quarter and went into halftime still up by 15 points. But Souhegan came out in the third and started chipping away behind the efforts of Alex Hill.

Hill pressured the Trojans’ ballhandlers and forced a few turnovers that the Sabers turned into points, as they cut an 18-point deficit down to four, 41-37, with a 14-0 run. Thornton got the lead back to 10 going into the fourth, but the Sabers scored the first six points of the quarter to make it 49-45 with 6:17 to play.

Souhegan was able to make it a six-point game with 2:31 remaining, but Thornton went 7 of 10 from the free throw line to hang on for the win.

Hill led the Sabers with 23 points and Isaac Nevrla was also in double figures with 10 points. Thornton got 23 points from Kevin Barrett, including 13 of 18 at the line, while Ben Lambert had 19 points and Rome Pura added 12.