FITCHBURG – At the end of Tuesday’s game against Lunenburg during Monty Tech summer basketball league action, the Athol boys summer basketball team sat on the bench, all in a line, and listened to Athol coach Mark Ferrari Sr. talk about emotions and playing as a team. Ferrari Sr. stressed shadowing each players flaws and coming together as one team instead of individuals, which seemed well-placed as Athol had let the emotions get the best of them on the court, losing 40-32.
“I lost my emotion and I don’t do that quite often,” said Athol’s Bryce King, referring to the tension felt on the court and more specifically, a play where he yelled in frustration at what he felt was a missed call. “I tried to keep Mark (Ferrari) down, but tension, yeah. I mean the refs aren’t the greatest but you’ve got to deal with it and there’s nothing they can do. We’ve got to be the bigger man.”
Athol was up 16-12 with five seconds left in the first half when Brymere Edwards exchanged words with one Lunenburg player and one referee which led to vulgarities shouted by Edwards. Edwards was assessed a technical foul. Lunenburg made one free throw as Athol took a 16-13 lead into half.
“What you can do as a coach right then is gather themselves,” said Mark Ferrari Sr. “They’re letting the outside noise delegate how their effort plays on the court. You have to get them and get them focused and to move on and move forward. Forget about that. Forget about the calls because you can’t do anything about them. People miss calls, they’re not perfect. That’s not going to make the game so you move on.”
The game began to slip away from Athol following the outburst. Lunenburg tied the game at 18 with three minutes into the second half and turned that into a 7-0 run to go up 22-18.
After Edwards hit a three to move within one at 22-21 with 13 minutes and 42 seconds left in the game, Lunenburg then went on an 18-0 run to go up 40-21 with two minutes and 20 seconds left.
During that span, Athol looked frustrated on the court with multiple players seemingly feeling defeated.
“We’ve played together for a long time and our attitudes, we all know that our attitudes aren’t great,” said King. “From travel team, we won every single game. Then going to middle school we would win and then high school, which we get killed every single game, it’s kind of tough on me, Mark, Noah (Pottinger), Parker (Deleo). … My emotions definitely put down the team and from then on we just went down.”
Athol did go on a run with less than two minutes left, netting 11 straight points while Lunenburg lagged in transition. Pottinger netted three 3-pointers during that span, ending the night with 14 total points.
“I thought they gave up. They gave up on themselves,” said Mark Ferrari Sr. “They weren’t getting back on defense. They weren’t hustling as much and just falling apart. That’s basically it.”