Poor spacing, shooting sends Mahar boys summer basketball home with 52-31 loss to Pioneer

FITCHBURG — Poor spacing, both offensively and defensively and poor shot selection turned the Mahar boys summer basketball team in against Pioneer on Tuesday night, losing 52-31 in the Monty Tech summer basketball league in Fitchburg.

“I wasn’t happy with much of anything we did tonight,” said Mahar coach Enver Softic. “That’s it.”

Softic’s succinct answers followed his verbal and personal cues throughout the game. Softic used all of his timeouts in the first half and could be heard from any point of the gymnasium when addressing his team during timeouts.

“(The loss) had nothing to do with Xs and Os. It was absolutely everything to do with energy and focus tonight,” said Softic. “It just wasn’t there. I raised my voice a couple of times and used up all my timeouts and it just wasn’t our night.”

Softic also addressed the age of the team factoring into the way Mahar played.

“They’re young and they’re going to have ups and downs and they’re going to have bumps and bruises physically and emotionally,” said Softic. “It’s all part of the process of becoming the kind of team that we all want them be. No one is discouraged.”

Defensively, the team had only 20 rebounds and three in the second half. Eli Gonzalez led the team with seven rebounds while Matt Lyesiuk added five. Jordan Desrosiers led the team with seven points.

After going down 20-10 going into halftime, Mahar could do little to climb back into the game. They went down by 14 at 29-15 four minutes into the second half on a steal at midcourt turned into an easy layup for Pioneer. Mahar came within nine, 29-20, thanks to a three from Desrosiers and layup by Charlie Barnes, but Pioneer quickly moved back out by 18 at 38-20.

Mahar wouldn’t get any closer than 15 points for the remainder of the game. Lyesiuk hit an open three to move within 42-27 with five minutes and 25 seconds left in the game. Pioneer then went on a 10-0 to move out front by 25 at 52-27. A basket from underneath the hoop by Zach Notre brought the game back to within 23 and a pair of free throws by Peter Currie brought the game to its 52-31 final.