Brighton built a quick lead in overtime and forced B-R to play catch-up, outscoring the Trojans, 12-9, in the extra frame to earn the narrow victory.
Bridgewater-Raynham and Brighton needed overtime to settle their boys basketball showdown on Monday afternoon in the BABC Martin Luther King Jr. Classic at Cathedral High School, with the Bengals grabbing a 79-76 victory.
Through three quarters, the Trojans rarely found themselves trailing, building a lead by as many as 12 in the third quarter. At halftime they held a 36-30 advantage, which became a 53-46 cushion going into the final quarter.
However, the fourth is when the twists and turns of the game came into play.
Brighton, the reigning Massachusetts Division 2 state champions, opened the quarter on a 10-0 run over the first four minutes to take a 56-53 lead. Bridgewater-Raynham missed its first six shots of the quarter to aid that run. But the Trojans answered with a 9-2 spurt of their own over the next two minutes that saw them reclaim a four-point advantage at 62-58 with just over two minutes to play.
The Trojans played from in front the rest of the quarter, but a Devrae Burns 3-pointer at the buzzer for the Bengals forced overtime with the score tied at 67-67.
Brighton built a quick lead in overtime and forced B-R to play catch-up, outscoring the Trojans, 12-9, in the extra frame to earn the narrow victory.
Bridgewater-Raynham’s offense mostly ran through Darrius Hyppolite, who scored a game-high 32 points on 12 of 23 shooting and eight 3-pointers. He hit his final five shots and accounted for six of the team’s nine points in overtime. Sam Brown accounted for 11 points and Doug Alves and Connor Rubenskas each had 10.
The Bengals got a balanced effort from Johnny Ortiz, Jerrod Clark and Burns, as the trio combined to score 59 of the team’s 79 points. Ortiz scored a team-high 24, Clark had 19 and Burns finished with 16.