Tigers Tame Red Raiders on the Road

At any level of basketball, team chemistry is everything.

But that chemistry seemed lacking last night for the Barnstable High School Red Raiders as the host Taunton Tigers (9-5) staged an upset over their guests, 73-65, at the Joseph Rabouin field house.

Even though Barnstable's Charlie Rice made a return to the starting lineup, the stoic and dependable big man apparently still suffered from a week-old bruising talbone injury and was forced to come out of the game early in the 1st quarter. Taunton capitalized on his absence and what appeared to be the lack of any substantial presence Barnstable usually posts beneath the basket.

Combine Rice's absence with just a 34.62% Barnstable field goal percentage for the game and the mountain the Red & White had to climb to win this game became openly insurmountable. Individually, the Red Raiders picked up some solid performances, particularly from senior guard Justin Alvaran off the bench as Alvaran poured in 12 points on the night, including four assists and a huge fourth quarter steal that led to Everett Walsh's sole basket of the game. Junior forward Jason Eddy turned in his second straight monster performance with 16 points, three steals and (7) seven rebounds. Nick Peabody turned in a 15-point effort with five rebounds and Travis Kendrew had 13 points, but none of those numbers added up to create an unbeatable, unified effort.

Taunton's Shaquille Davis, one of the premier players in the Old Colony League, was held to a meagre (6) points in the first half as Barnstable enjoyed a 26-23 halftime lead, erasing the earlier first quarter lead Taunton built on the back of Barnstable's low shooting percentage. But Davis turned things around in the second half, pouring in 19 of his 25 points to help his Tigers regain control of the game's momentum and ultimately, the victory. Barnstable is now 11-3 on the season and 3-1 in the OCL.

BHS went 13-18 from the free-throw line and 18-52 from the field but it did go 5-7 from beyond the arc. Collectively, the Red Raiders had just 20 rebounds. Alvaran scored (9) nine of his 12 points in the fourth quarter in an impressive effort to try and sway the momentum to the Red & White.

Combined with its overall low shooting percentage and lack of rebounding, Barnstable added 13 turnovers to the mix - all of those factors made it extraordinarily difficult for the visiting Red Raiders to mount a legitimate offensive against a hungry Taunton squad that in many instances gave itself two or three chances to put the ball in the bucket.

Barnstable will host B.M.C. Durfee High School on Tuesday at 6:30 pm in Hyannis. The Red Raiders downed Durfee on the road last time the two teams met, 67-47.

As an aside, the BHS junior varsity squad staged an exciting, 47-45 overtime loss to the Tigers prior to the abovementioned varsity game with superlative efforts turned in by Colby Blaze and Manny Perry.