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Health & Fitness

Sharon Basketball Outlasts Foxboro in Frenetic Finish

The Sharon High boys basketball team survived one of the wildest endings to a game in recent memory and a subpar overall offensive performance to earn their second consecutive Davenport Division victory to open the 2013-14 season, nipping Foxboro, 45-43, at Eagle Gymnasium on Friday night.

The Eagles, in front of a packed house in their home opener, did not tally a point for an extended stretch late in a tense fourth quarter. Foxboro was offered numerous opportunities to overtake Sharon in trailing by a single point for the game’s final minutes. Sharon couldn’t score inside of 30 seconds left in regulation, so Foxboro possessed the ball, looking for a buzzer-beating victory.

Then ensued a flurry of timeouts, a foul, a scrum, the buzzer being sounded just before a Foxboro inbound (due to the official timer not being able to see the ball being inbounded into the corner with the Warrior bench on its feet), a sequence that took about five minutes real-time. After the dust had settled, 5.9 seconds remained with the visitors still down 44-43.

A Foxboro open 15-footer from the left wing sailed long, but a Warrior rebounded the airball and found himself a point-blank, well-angled opportunity inches from the backboard. The two-handed put-back rimmed out, and Sharon senior captain and forward/center Erik Kushner pulled down the rebound and was fouled with 0.2 seconds remaining, sealing the ballgame.

On how Sharon managed to outlast Foxboro in the final seconds, Eagles senior captain James Fritzson said, “I honestly don’t know. When that guy missed that lay-up – that was just luck.”

Sharon Head Coach Bruce Jackman called the game overall sloppy and hard-fought. “They gave us everything we could handle. I thought we just scrapped like hell. I’m proud of the outcome and how hard we played, but we have a lot of work to do,” he said.

In a game that Eagles senior captain Brian Mukasa, a four-year varsity player, called “probably the worst high school basketball game of my career, personally,” neither team separated itself as a combination of feisty defense and arrhythmic offense held scores well below Hockomock League norms.

Sharon senior center Earl Dessesaure, who started his first varsity game and provided an important post presence in Sharon’s season-opening 64-51 victory over Stoughton on Wednesday, was relegated to the bench during much of Friday’s contest, plagued by foul trouble.

Foxboro found success inside, but Kushner’s work in the paint, grabbing double-digit rebounds, was crucial to keeping the Warriors at bay. Sophomore Jordan Mello-Klein, who likewise earned his first career start, said, “We were playing with heart, really playing with effort. Erik Kushner stepped up, definitely. Defensive rebounding was a key.”

Offensively for Sharon, Jackman says that his squad was fortunate to survive a below-average shooting night. “We’ve got to work on shot selection, though we did have some open shots that we just didn’t knock down. In this offense we’re using, if the ball is not going down, we’re in for a long night,” he said.

Fritzson hit his first three-pointer of the young season in the first quarter and was Sharon’s high scorer on the night with 16. Jackman said, “He had some good, solid looks, and he didn’t knock down the threes like he normally does. But he kept working at it. Tough kid.

“I think as the season progresses, he’s going to be more and more effective shooting the ball from the outside. Everybody who plays defense on him just gets up in his face. It’s hard for him to do that all the time,” the coach added.

Mello-Klein, a guard who led the Eagles in scoring with 20 vs. Stoughton, contributed 13 on Friday, including three more three-pointers. “I thought my shot was okay. I’ve just need to take it to the hoop more, be more aggressive - stop settling for outside shots, because I know the defenders can't guard me,” Mello-Klein said.

Mukasa credited Foxboro, saying that their post players were better offensively than he anticipated. Cam Seeley was the Warriors’ high scorer with 13, all on twos and free throws. Jackman added, “They [Foxboro] played hard. They were scrappy. They worked really hard against us, worked hard inside. They didn’t give us anything for nothing, that’s for sure.”

Sharon scored just ten points in the final quarter, but the output sufficed for the squad to improve to 2-0 on the campaign. Mello-Klein said, “It’s hard to win when a team is with you that close the whole game. You figure they’d always pull away, but we actually stuck through it and finished it out at the end.”

Despite the squad's second consecutive middling performance, Mukasa was pleased that Sharon emerged from the regular season’s first week versus two Davenport foes with a pair of victories.

“It feels good. Wednesday was mediocre, and today was even less than that. To get out of here with two wins is encouraging - if you want to look at it that way - even though we’ve played far from our best basketball,” Mukasa said.

Sharon has a full week off from games before taking on Falmouth, an annual non-league opponent, to open the Bridgewater-Raynham Holiday Tournament next Friday. Foxboro (1-2, 1-2 Hockomock) hosts Southeastern Regional on Monday.

Fritzson says that for the Eagles, attempting to increase the fluidity of the offense will be a priority. “Offense, we need to work on that, because it’s not flowing. I think we have to move the ball more and just trust each other,” Fritzson said.

Mello-Klein says that allowing plays to develop more fully will be an important step. “We’re getting into it [sets], doing one pass, and getting out of it and just playing one-on-one. We’ve got to play as more of a team. I think it’s coming together now that we’re playing in our third week. We’re going to be a good team.”

Limiting turnovers would be another significant benefit for the offensive production. On areas to improve from the Foxboro game, Mukasa let out a laugh and said, “Not turning the ball over five times in the first quarter would be nice for me and the team."

Mukasa added, “We want to keep it under ten for a game, if we’re going to be a championship-caliber team, which we feel we can be.”

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