The No. 8 Mascenic boys’ basketball team won their Division IV playoff opener against No. 9 Groveton Monday night, 66-52, behind a pair of 20-point performances by seniors Joe Cocozella and Dylan Barthel. 

“The Mascenic Vikings came to play like Vikings,” said first-year head coach Ryan Kelley after the game. “They played hard all game. Total credit to Groveton – they gave us nothing. We had to work for everything, because they were nonstop defensively on the glass. Even when we got rebounds, they were all over us. So we had to step it up and we did a really nice job doing that.”

Indeed, the young Eagles made things tough for the seasoned Vikings thanks to solid guard play from Kaleb Cloutier (18 points), and Groveton hung around until midway through the third quarter, at which point the Vikings swung the ax and finished off their opponents. Barthel had six points in the quarter on 6-6 shooting from the free-throw line, and his efforts on the defensive end set the tone for Mascenic. 

“He does so much on both sides,” Kelley said. “Part of the reason we were able to pull away in the second half was his level of intensity on the defensive end. The number of floor burns that kid has from this non-wood floor! It took a lot of guts.”

Cocozella ran all over the Eagles in the fourth quarter, scoring nine points on 5-5 free throw shooting; neither he nor Barthel missed a free throw. 

Mascenic also got positive minutes off the bench from sophomore Lucas Leroux, who came in and immediately pulled the trigger on a corner three; he’d finish with seven, as would Tyler Lowe. 

The Vikings (12-6) now face a long trip up to No. 1 Littleton (18-1) Thursday, as the Crusaders survived a scare from No. 16 Gorham in their playoff opener Monday, winning 60-56. Mascenic and Littleton did not play each other during the regular season, but Kelley’s season-long focus on improving game-by-game is still the course to stay for the Vikings. 

“Every new game, we're going to have to be a little bit better at the things we're already doing well,” Kelley said. “As many things as we did well tonight, it still took a long time to get separation. ...With the two big kids (Kayden Hoskins and Carmichael Lopez), Littleton has a lot of length on their side. So we are going have to do more and be better. At the defensive end, the matchup is going to be way different than what we had tonight. Our defensive rotations are going to have to be sharper.”

GIRLS’ BASKETBALL

Newmarket 41, Wilton-Lyndeborough 39

The WLC girls lost a thrilling playoff opener at Newmarket Tuesday night in the Warriors’ first playoff action since 2014.

WLC trailed 27-18 at the half but went on a 13-5 run sparked by two big threes and a steal from Lexi Bausha, head coach Tom Crowley said, and actually took the lead up to four points with under five minutes left, but Newmarket regained the lead and ran out the clock. 

Adri Bausha, recently returned from a knee injury that cost her the past year, was huge with eight points and five blocks; senior Bri Fish had eight points, four of which came late in the fourth. Ryleigh Smith got WLC going in the first quarter, scoring six of her eight points, and Maddy Labrecque scored four.

“All-around excellent effort from a team which hadn't been a varsity program for three years,” Crowley said. “I couldn't be more proud of them and the effort that they put in.”

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