{"id":9294,"date":"2024-01-06T09:40:52","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T09:40:52","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Pembroke-Boys-Basketball-Pelham-53568978\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=9294","title":{"rendered":"Boys\u2019 basketball: Not quite revenge, but Pembroke holds off Pelham in 55-54 nailbiter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pembroke
Pembroke senior Joe Fitzgerald drives to the basket during the Spartans\u2019 Capital Classic third-place game against John Stark on Dec. 29.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Pembroke\u2019s
Pembroke\u2019s Joe Fitzgerald drives past a Pelham defender towards the basket on Friday\u00a0at Pembroke Academy. Fitzgerald scored a game-high 23 points to lead the Spartans over the Pythons, 55-54, in a rematch of last season\u2019s Division II championship game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Pembroke\u2019s\u00a0Javien
Pembroke\u2019s\u00a0Javien Sinclair (left) and Devin Riel (2) guard Pelham\u2019s Zach James during a game at Pembroke Academy on Friday,\u00a0a rematch of last season\u2019s Division II championship. James led Pelham with 21 points, but the Spartans held him scoreless in the fourth quarter as Pembroke avenged last year\u2019s loss with a 55-54 victory.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

PEMBROKE \u2013\u00a0Yes, Pelham beat Pembroke twice last season, including 57-54 in the Division II championship game. But Friday wasn\u2019t exactly a \u2018revenge\u2019 game. After all, the Spartans graduated nine seniors off their team, so most of the current players didn\u2019t even play in that title contest. And, a win in the fourth game of the season certainly doesn\u2019t erase the sour taste of a championship game loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the upstart Spartans \u2013\u00a0who trailed at the end of each of the first three quarters, including 44-40 heading into the fourth \u2013 outscored the Pythons 15-10 in the final eight minutes to eke out a 55-54 win, remaining unbeaten so far this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen our boys so excited,\u201d head coach Mike Donnell said.\u00a0\u201cThey knew it was going to be a tough victory. You know one team was going home tonight not undefeated anymore, and now there\u2019s just two undefeated teams standing, and that\u2019s us and Manchester West.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Joe Fitzgerald led the Spartans (4-0) with 23 points, while junior Evan Berkeley added 11 points. But it was sophomore Zach Bemis, Donnell said, who despite only scoring two points on 1-of-7 shooting and missing two free throws, helped shift the tone of the game off the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a steal, he picked up two charges in the game, one of them in the fourth quarter. Just such an asset tonight, coming into a big spot and he just helped us out tremendously,\u201d Donnell said.<\/p>\n

On the other side, Pelham\u2019s\u00a0Zach James led the visitors with 21 points, but Pembroke held him scoreless in the fourth quarter. The Pythons (4-1) entered Friday averaging 69 points per game;\u00a0the Spartans held them 15 points below their average.<\/p>\n

The performance\u00a0certainly serves as a boon to a team with a number of new faces playing significant minutes this season. Although the few returners \u2014 like Fitzgerald and Berkeley \u2014 already know what it takes to win and the younger players who played on the JV team last year\u00a0dominated to a 16-1 record, winning a game like Friday\u2019s certainly provides a major confidence boost, particularly if these two teams square off again in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Asked what stood out to him most from the victory, Donnell repeated an ingredient that\u2019s become all-too-common in Pembroke\u2019s recipe for success since the start of last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like a broken record: chemistry,\u201d he said. \u201cThe boys just played so well together. … Just the relentlessness of these guys not quitting. They just kept coming back and coming back and coming back. There looked like there were\u00a0no nerves on them. There were\u00a0a lot on my end, but our guys just seemed very comfortable and very relaxed and knew what they needed to do. Fortunately this time, we came out on top.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEMBROKE \u2013\u00a0Yes, Pelham beat Pembroke twice last season, including 57-54 in the Division II championship game. But Friday wasn\u2019t exactly a \u2018revenge\u2019 game. After all, the Spartans graduated nine seniors off their team, so most of the current players…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":9295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=188]Eric Rynston-Lobel[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,508],"tags":[24,505,274],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-9294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-youth","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","tag-pembroke-academy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/42627347-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9296,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9294\/revisions\/9296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9294"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=9294"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}