Hanover coach Tim Winslow and his defending state champion Marauders thought they were seeing double most of the second half.

With his team ahead, 37- 19, early in the third quarter of the March 5 Class I semifinal against upstart No. 9 Pembroke, Winslow said he assumed his fourth-seeded squad was well on its way to the title game.

The pesky Spartans had a different idea, however, forcing fans to wait until the final seconds before the outcome was determined.

The Marauders won, 56- 48, but they’ll likely see visions of Pembroke green in their sleep for weeks.

After failing to score the first several minutes of the second half and watching Hanover extend its lead to 18 points with a 6-0 run, Pembroke, led by the up-tempo play of senior guard Justin Muniz, scored the next eight points – and 26 of the next 34.

“We were just getting in each other’s heads, trying to psych each other up,” said Muniz of the second-half run. “The feeling is so hard to describe. You’ve just got everything in your body pumping, and you just want to go a thousand miles (per hour).”

For those on the Hanover bench, it was obvious the Spartans had indeed shifted into overdrive.

“The thing that makes Pembroke great is it seems like they have seven players on the floor, and that’s what you want,” said Winslow. “You want your defense to make it seem like there’s more than five jerseys out there, and that’s what they did in the second half.”

The Spartans also shut down 6-foot-4 Class I player of the year candidate Casey Maue, who entered the contest averaging more than 19 points per game. He scored nine points in the semifinal matchup.

“They contested everything,” said Winslow. “Every time Casey went to the basket there was someone right there, and they made him work to earn everything.”

The Spartans came all the way back, bringing the score to 47-45 and then 49-47 with under three minutes remaining in the contest.

At that point, the game became a free-throw shooting contest. While the locals shot 1-for-4 from the charity stripe in the last two minutes, their opponents went 5-for-8.

“We’ve got to make those free throws, and maybe a couple of those shots that we made against Oyster River didn’t go down, but we got good looks, and if we tie the game or go ahead, maybe it’s a different result,” said PA coach Matt Alosa, who added his squad wouldn’t have been in that position without its frantic full-court press.

“We go on spurts. We don’t do it all the time, but when we need it, it’s there for us. We pressed from the beginning, but it wasn’t as aggressive as (in the second half),” added Alosa. “We had to turn it up because otherwise they were going to beat us by 20.”

While each player contributed on defense, there was no presence more noticeable than junior Tyler Yeaton.

With the Spartans facing a team that outsized them at nearly every position, Alosa said he knew the 6-foot-5, athleticallybuilt center had to play well if the Spartans were going to compete. Yeaton pulled in 10 rebounds, netted eight points and garnered six steals.

“Those Hanover guys are pretty spectacular. To tell you the truth I just tried to keep my hands up and stay out of foul trouble,” said Yeaton, who laughed about a sore hip and limp created by one too many meetings with the hardwood floor.

And Muniz, of course, was invaluable to both the game’s and season’s success, said Alosa. “Muniz is our heart and soul. The way he goes, we go, and they follow him,” said the coach. “We just try to ride him with his defense and heart and handling the ball. He’s just tenacious.”

Now, the Spartans must move forward without their spark plug, as well as his backcourt mate, Drou Goff, and sixth man Matt Lavoie, each instrumental in the postseason run.

Even in defeat, the experience will do nothing but benefit the young squad, said Alosa. “The kids who played, and even the kids who didn’t play, Hanover is so composed, and that comes from experience, and I think that experience, for us, is huge,” he said. “We’ll have a little bit of a different team next year, but we’ve got a lot of kids who you haven’t even seen this year that are going to get a chance next year, and I think we’ll be back.”

Game notes
Goff dropped in 13 points, and Muniz contributed 10. Guards Jon Grenier, a junior, and Sheldon Benson, a sophomore, each contributed six to the scoreboard, and freshman Taylor Vazquez added five points.