SALEM — With the first snowstorm of the season falling outside Salem’s Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse Friday night, visiting Beverly High was seeing its shots from inside the paint and under the basket pile up just as quickly.
The Panthers spread the ball around offensively, found the open man more often than not and took advantage of a size advantage against the host Witches, resulting in a 57-41 victory over their arch rivals.
With Salem focused on shutting down high scoring Panther southpaw guard Jacob Klass, his teammates were more than happy to capitalize on open looks. Danny Pierce, like Klass a junior captain for BHS, scored a team-leading high 19 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out six assists. Most of his scoring came through a series of slashes to the basket and short range jumpers.
“We know by now that everyone’s game plan is to stop Jacob, so the other guys are going to have to step up,” Beverly (3-0) coach Matt Karakoudas said postgame. “The more other guys step up, the more other teams have to play Jacob honest … and throughout the season that’ll be fine for us.
“Jacob didn’t score the ball a lot tonight, but we still won by 16 points. We’ll take that every time.”
Klass added 13 points and eight rebounds while senior forward Will Ryan was also in double figures with 10. Sophomore forward Andrew Bragnaca had a strong game at both ends of the floor, finishing with eight points and seven boards, and senior big man Ehioze Okhuozagbon scored five points and pulled down eight rebounds, all in the fourth quarter.
“Because they were overplaying Jacob so much, most of our other guys were able to make backdoor cuts or get the ball down in the paint, resulting in a lot of high percentage shots,” Karakoudas said.
With its lack of size — nothing new for head coach Tommy Doyle’s teams, who traditionally are undersized — hitting their shots is a must. But the Witches connected on just one of 25 three-point attempts and were 17-of-68 from the field (25 percent) on the night.
“Offensively we just never got going,” said veteran Salem coach Tommy Doyle “We had some mini-spurts, but nothing substantial. And credit to Beverly’s defense; they forced us into some tough shots that weren’t falling for us.”
The only lead of the evening for Salem (now 1-1) came on an Elian Rodriguez lay-in to make it 4-2. But the Panthers scored 10 of the next 12 points and were off and running. The Witches cut that deficit to seven twice in the second quarter, but found themselves down 11 at the break and 15 after three quarters.
Rodriguez, a sophomore guard, led all scorers with 22 points and tied for the team high with seven rebounds. Nate Lane, a junior guard, added seven points and seven boards while senior forward Canei McLeod finished with five points and two blocked shots. Captain Rocco Ryan added seven rebounds.
While it wasn’t a perfect night for the Panthers — they committed 23 turnovers, almost double their average — they held the Witches down offensively and are now surrendering just 43 points a game.
“I always tell our guys ‘If you hold the other team under 49 points, we’ll find a way to score 50 and win’,” said Karakoudas.
Salem seniors Josh Giaff Hodge and Larell Carpenter drew the assignment of trying to limit Klass’ points and, with some secondary help, didn’t allow the Beverly sharpshooter to go off.
“The only problem was, their other guys went off,” said Doyle.
“Second chance points hurt us tonight, so that’s something we’re going to have to stress over the holiday break: finding ways to get everyone involved and going for rebounds,” he added. “We can’t be giving up those easy putbacks. We’re going to have to play bigger than we are … and we always do in Salem.”
While Beverly is back in action Monday at home against Haverhill (7 p.m.) before taking part in the Commonwealth Motors Christmas Classic at Merrimack College starting next Friday, Salem is off until January 3 when it hosts Gloucester.
Beverly 57, Salem 41
at Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse, Salem
Beverly: Jacob Klass 5-3-13, Will Ryan 5-0-10, Eli Landman 0-2-2, Danny Pierce 8-1-19, Isaac Saas 0-0-0, Liam Timpone 1-0-2, Andrew Braganca 4-0-8, Jackson Ulrich 0-0-0, Benjamin Doughty 0-0-0, Gabriel Djebril Jean El Hachemi 0-0-0, Constantin Panda 0-0-0, Ehioze Okhuozagbon 2-1-5. Totals 25-5-57.
Salem: Elian Rodriguez 10-1-22, Nate Lane 2-3-7, Canei McLeod 2-1-5, Rocco Ryan 1-0-2, Josh Giaff Hodge 0-0-0, Jack Tsoutsouras 1-1-3, Larell Carpenter 1-0-2, Matt Kenney 0-0-0, Sean Murphy 0-09-0, Jeyren Estevez 0-0-0, Darren Taku 0-0-0, Darlin Hernandez 0-0-0, Chris Hanson 0-0-0, Cesar Mesa 0-0-0, Luis Morel 0-0-0. Totals 17-6-41.
Halftime: Beverly, 26-15.
Three-pointers: B, Pierce 2; S, Rodriguez.
Records: B, 3-0; S, 1-1.