Boys’ Varsity Basketball falls to Waltham
December 12, 2018
On Tuesday, December 11, the Westford Academy Boys’ Varsity Basketball team faced-off against Waltham High School at WA. While playing aggressively in the first match of the season, the WA team fell short of the 17 points they needed to catch up to Waltham, falling to the opponent at a score of 47 to 64.
Waltham started the game strong, making the first play of the game with a three-point shot. Soon after, WA junior Aryah Purandare added 2 points to the board with senior and co-captain Scott Beattie, pushing their score to 4. The guest team, however, did not stop with their three-pointers and continued to gain more and more points while WA remained stagnant.
The first quarter came to a close with Waltham in the lead by 13 points.
The second quarter started off well for WA when senior and co-captain Ben Lawrence made the team’s first 3-pointer on the first play. Lawrence soon followed up and pulled in 4 more points for WA. In response, Waltham made another array of shots and established a prominent lead, leaving WA behind 12-24.
After halftime, WA mustered a stronger defense and was able to rebound over half of Waltham’s shots. The Ghosts began to catch up, trailing by only 9 points.
In the third quarter, WA maintained a strong defense, constantly blocking Waltham’s shots. This led to a considerable amount of fouls on both sides, WA committing 7 of them.
The plethora of fouls resulted in to WA trailing 34 to 51 at the end of the third quarter.
Lawrence played an impressive fourth quarter. With 4 minutes left, Lawrence made two jump shots and WA’s first 3-pointer of the quarter, racking up 9 points for the Ghosts. By the middle of the quarter, Lawrence had chipped into WA’s deficit, but the Ghosts were still behind 47 to 60.
With only 2 minutes remaining, Waltham secured their lead with more free throws and rebounds. WA was not able to score any more points. With such little time left, there was too much of a gap for the Ghosts to catch up, and WA faced defeat with a final score of 47 to 64.
Despite the loss, Coach Bramanti plans to take the loss as a learning experience and implement new strategies in following games.
“I am disappointed in our effort that we did not match Waltham’s toughness. We will be working on rebounding, defense, and toughness drills to prepare for Acton-Boxborough on Friday night [December 14],” Bramanti said.
