The WA Boys’ Basketball team suffered a loss at an away game to Leominster High School (LHS) 64-46 on Monday, Feb 10, bringing their season record to 8-9.
The game started off strong, with both Leominster and WA showing a lot of enthusiasm, but WA wasn’t as strong in the first few minutes as Leominster was. Leominster scored the first two points and showed heavy aggression on both offense and defense throughout the first quarter, leaving WA at an overall standstill. With six minutes left in the quarter, WA was fouled, and senior Alex Wilson made one of two free throws, earning WA their first point. Throughout the remainder of the quarter senior captain Nate Pitts scored four points, and junior Teddy Hirbour scored six. By the end of the first quarter, the score was 23-11 Leominster.
“We went [into] the game with pretty good energy and many of us wanted to beat the other team,” senior captain Vishal Rampur said
The team’s passion changed for the better in the second quarter. Everyone played with more intensity, and that translated into a strong start both on offense and defense.
Early in the second quarter, senior Chris Butts and Pitts were able to score three-pointers which gained the team some momentum. The rest of the second quarter was fairly scoreless due to both teams playing tight defense, and playing with caution, preventing the other team from scoring or being fouled. The score at the end of the half was 35-23 Leominster.
The third quarter started off with an abundance of drive, both with WA’s aggressive offense and Leominsters strict defending. WA ended up scoring first, raising their deficit within ten points. On the defensive end. WA was definitely improving and making up for their weak first half, but this also brought along a few fouls which led to Leominster getting easy points.
“We did have a lot of turnovers and it seemed to have affected us mentally,” Rampur said
Early in the third quarter WA started to play a half court defensive press, making sure they stayed close to their player to prevent them from scoring. Later in the quarter WA’s offense started to unravel and become unorganized, especially with their passes which led to turnovers and Leominster’s lead to increase to twenty-one points at the end of the quarter.
With this deficit,WA wanted a turnaround in the way they were playing in the fourth and final quarter, especially offensively. They also wanted to make sure they were keeping their passes sharp to prevent any more turnovers.
The start of the fourth quarter was explosive, with senior Shreyas Gowda stealing the incoming ball and scoring a layup, giving the team a needed boost of energy and confidence. That confidence transpired throughout the entire team, with a lot more passion was being shown on offense and more shots were being taken at an attempt to eat away at that deficit.
Now that WA had a solid offense, their defense was starting to struggle. They made more fouls and were letting more shots get off, and as a result Leominster’s lead ended up growing, and with four minutes left in the game, the score was 60-36 Leominster. Despite the lead WA still played with full intensity and kept playing to win. Unfortunately that wouldn’t be enough, because despite their play ethic, WA ended up losing, with a final score of 64-46 Leominster.
In a post game interview head coach Chris Bramanti and Rampur spoke about the teams performance and what went well and what didn’t.
“I thought we broke the press fairly well, we just didn’t capitalize on it. But there weren’t a lot of positives today,” Bramanti said. “We have to play with more energy. [We] were just flat, offensively [and] defensively, [we] were just not connecting.”
Vishal made similar points, but also highlighted that the team has a fiery passion to win and compete.
“I think our bench came ready to play and many of them got minutes during the game. They made use of their minutes very efficiently and showed that they can compete,” Rampur said.
The WA Boys’ Varsity Basketball team still has three more games to play before the end of their season, with their next one being at Waltham High School on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m.
