WA Boys’ Basketball is back, and they returned in style. After not playing for 668 days, the Ghosts cruised to an easy win over the Weston Wildcats on Friday, Dec, 17 at home at WA, winning by a final score of 53-30.

Seniors Griffin Eddy and Luke Krikorian led the way scoring 13 and 10 points respectively, both doing most of their damage with layups and close range shots.

“This is what we do it for; the joy to get out there and be able to play. We played very well,” Coach Chris Bramanti said.

WA started the game off with 11 unanswered points until Weston got their first points about a third of the way through the first quarter. Once WA got the lead right off the bat with those 11 points, they never looked back, extending their lead throughout the game, and at one point, WA had built up a 24 point lead.

Early in the second quarter was the rockiest part of the game for WA. They struggled a bit to find shots to take, and their defense started to waver. Then, Coach Bramanti called a timeout to regroup and it worked perfectly. WA found their footing on defense, which allowed them to regroup on offense, and start scoring points again. WA led at halftime 25-17.

WA’s lead became dominating in the second half. The Ghosts picked up right where they left off, scoring another 16 points while holding Weston to only 4. Eddy and Jake Aylward were the star players of the third. Eddy scored the majority of WA’s points in the quarter, while Aylward took over defensively.

The fourth quarter was where Krikorian scored the majority of his points. Aylward continued to lead the defense until the very end when junior Yuvi Gahlaut dribbled the ball for the final 15 seconds to secure the 53-30 victory.

Although WA won, they still fouled a lot. They were not alone, however, as the game was filled with fouls on both sides. A total of 38 fouls were issued during the game, with 19 on each side. Many free throws were attempted by both sides and between the teams, about 50% were made. The number of fouls and free throws attempted slowed the pace of the game down, which allowed both teams to regroup often, added more opportunities for both offenses to score more points, and thus, gave the defenses more work.

Coach Bramanti was very pleased with the team’s performance. He is confident that their good performance in this game will translate to upcoming games against tougher opponents.

“They put in lots of hard work, and that’s the commitment they made to each other,” Bramanti said.

WA will play their second game of the season on Tuesday Dec. 21 at 5:30 p.m. at Boston Latin.