BREWER – Mark Reed maintains that during hard-fought basketball games against traditional opponents, the little things often make the biggest difference.

“You know each other so well that games really come down to who defends, who rebounds, and [who has] kids going and making plays,” said Reed, the second-year Brewer boys coach.

Reed’s magic formula worked for his Witches on Thursday as they scraped out a 43-40 overtime win over Hampden Academy.

About all the Witches didn’t do was rebound effectively against the taller Broncos: Hampden held a 36-22 edge on the boards and held Brewer to just three rebounds on their own offensive end.

But the other two pieces of Reed’s puzzle worked out just fine.

Want defense? Here’s defense: The Witches defended like a pack of angry dogs and held the Broncos to .326 shooting from the floor.

Key to that effort was the play of junior speedster Matt Sargent, who hounded Hampden star Justin DiFrederico all game long and got plenty of help from his teammates when he needed it. DiFrederico wound up with just two points on an atypical 1-for-11 shooting night.

The 5-foot-10 Sargent also added 10 points, five assists and two blocked shots.

Classmates Jon Bell and Chad Gomm added 11 and 10 points, respectively.

And when the Witches watched their game-long lead dwindle … then disappear … in the fourth quarter, Reed’s players made plays.

Hampden trailed by as much as eight points in the first half and took their first lead since the first quarter when Ben Keller (16 points, nine rebounds) nailed a 14-footer with 3:54 to go in the fourth.

Keller, who scored the Broncos’ last five points of regulation, pushed the lead to 33-30 when he answered a J.T. Breindel hoop with one of his own at the 2:31 mark, then made the front end of a one-and-one with 21.5 seconds to play.

Enter Bell.

The 6-foot-1 sniper, who had made just two of nine second-half shots to that point, scraped his defender off a double-screen and launched a 3-pointer from the left corner. When it rattled … and rattled … and finally settled into the net with five seconds to play, the teams were headed to overtime.

“I [had a lot of shots] go in and out a lot of times, but I just kept shooting,” Bell said. “And that one went in. It bounced around a couple of times, but [it went in].”

Reed said Bell may have gotten some help.

“You get a little bounce once in awhile,” Reed said. “It’s about making plays. Luckily he was able to get the ball in the hole. Maybe the witch knocked it in. I don’t know.”

Brewer trailed just once in overtime – at 41-40 after Ben Quimby’s 3-pointer from the right corner with 43 seconds to play.

That’s when Sargent got involved, breaking down the Hampden defense and dishing to a wide-open Lon Drillen for the go-ahead layup with 30 seconds to go.

After a Hampden turnover, Sargent nailed two free throws with 13.7 seconds to go to provide the final margin.

Hampden called two timeouts and ran two plays to get Keller open for the potential equalizer, but his last-ditch 3-pointer hit the front of the rim and Drillen cleared the rebound as time expired.

Kyle Dalton added nine rebounds and Nick Paoletti had nine points and six rebounds for HA.

WITCHES 43, BRONCOS 40 (OT)

Hampden (1-3) Brewer (3-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

DiFrederico 1 11 0 0 2 Bernier 0 1 0

Shaw 1 2 0 0 2 Bzn-Kaloustian 0 2 0

Keller 4 12 8 10 16 J. Bell 4 15 11

Dionne 1 3 0 1 2 Drillen 2 7

Paoletti 3 7 3 3 9 Breindel 2 5

Dalton 1 2 0 0 2 Gomm 5 9 10

Thomas 1 2 0 0 2 Sargent 2 5 10

Quimby 2 4 0 0 5

Totals 14 43 11 14 40 Totals 15 41 11 15 43

Hampden 6 12 21 33 40

Brewer 13 20 26 33 43

3-pt. goals: Hampden (1-8): DiFrederico 0-3, Keller 0-4, Quimby 1-1; Brewer (2-9): Sargent 0-3, J. Bell 2-5, Breindel 0-1

Attendance: 450 (est.)

Preliminary: Brewer JV 46-32