Raiders Answer the Wake-Up Call

Driven by poor play that threatened the future of his team’s season, Windsor Locks boys basketball coach Mike Mascaro thoughtfully crafted his message to the team at halftime of its CIAC Class S state tournament first-round game Tuesday night against visiting Thomaston. Warm and fuzzy was not an apt description of the locker-room atmosphere when he was letting his feelings be known.

The Raiders’ strong play of the first quarter that once featured a seven-point lead had turned into a four-point deficit by halftime, prompting Mascaro to resort to his coaching tricks to snap them out of their funk.

Windsor Locks listened attentively and carried out Mascaro’s wishes to defeat Thomaston 54-42 to advance to the second round Thursday against Coginchaug-Durham, a 58-39 winner over Coventry. That game will be played at Windsor Locks beginning at 7 p.m.

“It boggles our minds that our team could come into a state tournament game, when it’s lose and you go home, and not play hard,” Mascaro said after his fifth-seeded team had beaten the Bears, seeded 28th. “In the third quarter, we started to do what was expected, what we should have been doing the entire game.

“We came out and played with more composure and effort.”

Windsor Locks (16-6) scored the game’s first six points and turned a 9-7 lead into a 14-7 advantage on a basket by Donovin Ford-Hayes and a three-point play by Tim Putnam. Earlier in the quarter, Putnam reached the 1,000-point plateau and a brief ceremony interrupted the game, featuring respectful handshakes from all of the Bears.

After Putnam’s foul shot put the Raiders up by seven points, the momentum shifted dramatically and Mascaro could not pin-point a reason as to why. Thomaston (8-13) outscored Windsor Locks over the remainder of the half by 13-2 for a 20-16 lead at halftime.

Mascaro let the Raiders know he did not like their effort and their performance on defense, rebounding and failing to dive for loose balls. He was displeased with the ball movement and shot selection on offense. And they were careless with the ball. If there was anything he approved of, he did not let on.

“We stopped executing defensively,” Mascaro said. “We were not doing our jobs. Everyone was having their own agendas. We were not playing team defense and we were not playing the game plan we talked about.”

The second half was 11 seconds old when Windsor Locks forced a Thomaston turnover, then Ford-Hayes connected on a three-point shot – and just like that it was a one-point game at 20-19.  Two fouls shots by Putnam, who scored a game-high 21 points, and a layup by him gave the Raiders a 23-20 lead.

The Bears, who lost a Berkshire League playoff game to Litchfield, mostly stayed within four or five points of Windsor Locks until approximately three minutes were left, when the Raiders pushed it out of reach.

Thomaston was hampered not only by the Raiders’ rejuvenated play in the second half but by the game-long absence of its leading scorer, Eric April, a senior shooting guard who averages 17.5 points per game. He was ill, with stomach sickness at the game, forcing coach Joe Frascatore to hold him out. Frascatore, concerned about dehydration for April, said he had to move three players into different roles to compensate for the loss of April.

Not being awarded any foul shots also didn’t help the Bears’ cause. Windsor Locks was 22 of 28 from the foul line.

“They really felt it psychologically in the third period when Eric wasn’t there,” Frascatore said. “In the third period when things got rough for us, the players would have looked to him to get them over the hump.

“But they’re a good ball club with three solid players, with Putnam, Ford-Hayes and Taylor Gorzkowski. We did a good job on Ford-Hayes in the first half. He kind of opened it up for them in the second half.”

Ford-Hayes scored 11 points and Gorzkowski, who blocked three shots, added 10. Nick Pesce led Thomaston with 14 points and Dylan O’Brien added 13.

Windsor Locks last played in a loss to Suffield in the NCCC tournament. Coginchaug (14-8) is seeded 12th. The Raiders reached the semifinals in Class S last year. Putnam, who now has, 1,020 career points, is the first boy to reach 1,000 for Windsor Locks since Mascaro did it in 1988.