By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

PELHAM–An inspiring defensive performance and high levels of intensity helped lead the Helena Huskies basketball team to an upset win over the Pelham Panthers 63-52 on Tuesday, Dec. 1 at Pelham High School.

When the two teams met earlier this season, Pelham’s standout junior power forward Alex Reese finished with 29 points, but was held to just 15 points against Helena in the second matchup.

Helena handed Pelham just its second loss of the season and Huskies head coach Chris Laatsch said a lot of the credit goes to the defensive side of the ball and limiting Reese’s touches offensively.

“Obviously our game plan was to try and make it hard for Reese to try and touch it and try to double him and make him get rid of it,” said Laatsch. “He’s obviously a special player and we just didn’t want to let him beat us this night. I thought our kids were locked into the game plan defensively and executed it brilliantly and played with a lot of toughness and intensity and it was a special effort.”

Helena held Reese to just 4 points in the first half and Helena buried four three-pointers while forcing numerous turnovers to jump out to a 29-22 lead at halftime.

Offensively, Helena was led by Jon Brown who finished with 19 points in the game to lead all scorers. Justin Stuckey also added 18 points.

A key moment in the game came with 2:36 left in the third quarter with Helena leading 39-30. After calling a timeout, Pelham was looking for a quality offensive possession but Stuckey came up with a steal and easy layup to put Helena up 41-30, in which they would never look back.

Helena would continue a high level of play in the final quarter to defeat Pelham 63-52 and tie the overall series at 1-1 between the two teams.

Laatsch said he was proud of the shot selection by his team on the offensive side of the ball.

“We’ve been working hard on our shot selection and having the right guys shoot the right shots at the right time,” said Laatsch. “I think our guys did a good job of turning down shots to get the better shots for teammates tonight and I think that resulted in better percentages.”

A special part of the game was that coaches for both Helena and Pelham, cheerleaders, students and fans wore pink T-shirts that read “Cancer can’t stop Pelham and Helena” to support the American Cancer Society.

All proceeds collected on the night went to support the American Cancer Society.