By Dean Geddes
I&M Staff Writer
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Photo by Jim Powers
Nantucket’s Jay Egan skies for a shot against Easthampton’s Pat Hopewell in the second half of Saturday’s Whaler loss.
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The boys varsity basketball team fell behind early at home against the Easthampton Eagles on Saturday, and spent the rest of the game trying to pull even, ultimately losing 69-53.
The Whalers also fell hard at Harwich last Tuesday, losing 86-66.
It was a light week of action for the Whalers (1-2, 0-0 in the Lighthouse Conference), who travel to Chatham next week to take part in the Cape and Islands Christmas Classic. They play Wednesday against Martha’s Vineyard and Thursday against Mashpee.
On Saturday, the Whalers were down 11 points when head coach Beau Almodobar called a time-out with 7:06 left in regulation. After that, the Whalers went on a 6-0 run, capped by freshman guard Caio Correa’s jumper that made the score 52-47 with 5:05 left.
But the Whalers could not control the defensive glass in the last minutes of the game, and were unable to get any closer.
With 2:10 remaining, Correa made a great pass on the fast break to Andriquez Farmer, whose lay-up brought the Whalers within six.
But Eagle Drew Domina ended the Whalers’ hope of a comeback when he hit consecutive three-point shots, putting his team up 13 with a minute left to play.
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Photo by Jim Powers
Nantucket's Andriguez Farmer dribbles the ball in Saturday's game against Easthampton. |
“We were rushing our shots on offense and not moving the ball around,” Almodobar said. “When you take a quick shot and don’t make the other team work hard and get tired on defense, it’s essentially a turnover.”
The Whalers need to do a better job fighting through screens and making sure they secure rebounds when they have inside position, Almodobar said.
With the score tied at five two minutes into the game, the Whalers went on a three-minute scoring drought, and the Eagles jumped out to a nine-point lead. But then Adam Spencer made a great pass to Correa, who was cutting toward the hoop and scored an easy lay-up to make the score 14-7 with 10:15 left in the first half.
The Eagles dominated the next five minutes of the game to lead 28-13.
Whaler captain Wesley LaMotta made a pair of free throws and Jordan Ferreira made consecutive fast-break layups to make the score 28-19 near the end of the first half.
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Photo by Jim Powers
Nantucket's Jordan Ferreira goes in for a shot. Easthampton's Josh Cabana, right center, and Andrew Lawrence, far right in the second half of Saturday's game against Easthampton. |
The Whalers trailed 36-27 at the half, and after the break LaMotta and Ferreira each hit three-pointers, making it a 38-33 game.
Ferreira led the team in scoring with 19 points, including three 3-pointers.
LaMotta finished with 16 points, going five of six from the free-throw line. He also had six rebounds and a team-high five assists.
Spencer led the Whalers with eight rebounds, and also had four points, an assist and a blocked shot.
Tomas Smaliorius, one of the Whalers’ better rebounders, will miss the next six to eight weeks because of ligament damage in his finger.
Easthampton’s head coach Brian Miller said his team did well to come up with the win on the road in their first game of the season, despite having one of their best players, Domina, spend extra time on the bench because of foul trouble. The Eagles’ leading scoring from last year, Dan Hopewell, did not play because of an ankle injury.
“These guys aren’t used to taking ferry rides and staying in hotels. They did good to come out of here with a win,” Miller said.
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