It never fails at the gym that has hosted tons of title games over the years.

Yes, the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gym struck again on Sunday.

It has a habit of taking good basketball teams and reducing them to mediocre at best. And that’s what happened to the Hollis Brookline and Pelham boys squads. The Cavs came in 20-0 looking to seal the deal. Pelham was 16-4 but had plenty of tourney experience HB didn’t have.

But they both basically engaged in a tug of war in Sunday’s Division II championship game in Durham. Neither one able to have the offensive flow to pull away from the other, but plenty of grit and drive to make each other’s court lives miserable. HB completed it’s dream season, 42-37, but it sure wasn’t easy. If you were there, you know what we mean. The two teams combined to shoot 31 percent with a total of 31 field goals. It was brutal.

“Honestly, when you’re shooting on rims that you’ve never shot on before, with a background you’ve never shot on before, it makes it so much easier for these grind out games to end up happening,” Cavaliers coach Ryan Kelley said, adding he didn’t expect a blowout. “They’re really good. They match up well with us length wise. That was one of the things we knew was going to keep it a little bit closer.”

This was Kelley’s first high school title game here, just his third year at HB and fourth year as a high school coach. He found out about the noise level. He had cards he uses for defense to display, but he realized that he probably needed some for offense because his players couldn’t hear him.

Welcome to Lundholm.

It’s the Home of the Underdog.

What were the Pythons doing to make it this way?

“They were playing up,” Williams, who was the game’s high scorer with 14 points and a more important 15 rebounds, said. “Aggressive defense. They were pushing the ball more than they were when we played them the first time (way back on Dec. 16). They can all shoot, they have a team of shooters. That’s what kept this game close, to be honest.”

“Man, it was a struggle all 32 minutes,” HB’s Dylan Kelley said. “We knew it. Come playoffs, every game gets harder. Every team’s better, they’ve had the whole season to work. Past meetings don’t matter, you’ve got to come through with a fresh mindset.”

And that’s what the Cavs did. Their Division II Player of The Year, Williams, knew it would be this tough.

“Honestly, we did,” he said. “It’s a playoff game. Anything can happen in the playoffs. Different atmosphere. It makes everything harder. …It’s just harder. It’s playoffs, everyone’s nervous. The littlest nerve is going to make us miss.”

HB went up 7-2 you’re thinking it’s not going to be close. Guess again as they fell behind 16-12 after one. They recovered but were only up 23-19 at the half, despite holding Pelham to just three points in the second quarter. You usually score that few in a period, and it’s see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.

“Being down four points (16-12) that first quarter, I think that kind of woke us up, it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be a dogfight,” Dylan Kelley said. “We brought it back in together after that first quarter and said ‘Look, this is the game we wanted. We didn’t want a blowout. We wanted a close game. We wanted to give them something to watch.”

Oh, mission accomplished there. What did it come down to?

Eight Minutes of Hell.

The teams entered the fourth quarter tied at 31. Not just an eight minute game, but an eight minute season.

“We sat down and said ‘Hey, it’s going to be eight minutes of hell,” Dylan Kelley said. “But we’ve got to fight through it. We’re going to come out victorious. That’s all it was, was confidence. We knew we had worked all season for this moment.”

Hollis Brookline’s Alton Williams struggles to keep the ball away from Pelham’s Brady Hegan, left, and Brady O’Connor during Sunday’s Division II title game in Durham. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

But oh, the pressure.

“I liked the pressure,” Williams said. “I think pressure is a privilege. Coach says that a lot, and I feel like that helped us.”

How did the Cavs push through? Because they’re a No. 1 ranked, unbeaten team, that’s how. Pelham didn’t score in the final three-plus minutes.

“It shows that we’re a strong team,” Williams said. “We can do anything together. We’re like a family. We went through this entire season together. Struggled together, worked together …

“It’s kind of like your dream last season. You go undefeated, you’re with all your friends. You win this, I got Player of the Year. … It’s just a surprise. Everything’s been a surprise.”

Eight minutes of Lundholm Hell, and now the Cavaliers survived it and are in Hoop Heaven.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X @Telegraph _TomK.