The Weston High School boys' basketball team has been playing less-than-spectacular basketball lately.
This did not improve at all Friday night as the Wildcats were steamrolled by Dual County League-foe Waltham, 66-55, pushing their losing streak to three games. But the final score was hardly indicative of the contest, given Weston found itself down 40 points near the end of the third quarter.
“It was a tough game,” said Weston coach Rob Gibbons. “We haven’t come out to play the last few games. And when you spot teams 12, 15, sometimes 20 points, there’s nowhere to go. So we have a lot of work to do.”
The coach added, “You are going to get exposed when a team comes in hungry and outplays you from the get-go.”
With the loss, the Wildcats drop to 2-6 on the season. The Hawks, meanwhile, improve to 4-4.
“We just came out and played down and dirty defense,” said Waltham coach Joe Cacciatore. “That’s basically what put the game away for us.”
That defense forced two Wildcats’ turnovers early, resulting in a Luke Check-Davis three-pointer followed by a Jacob Dufrene lay-up, giving the Hawks a 7-2 lead.
Weston managed to keep the score close with senior Rashaan Powell contributing five points, which made sure his team was only down by six points at the end of the first quarter.
Giveaways continued to plague the Wildcats in the second quarter. At one point, they committed four straight during a 13-0 Hawk run that augmented Waltham's advantage to 40-10. From there, Waltham cruised to the victory.
“Turnovers are a product of what we’ve been doing,” said Gibbons. “We didn’t play well from the start. Turnovers are what everyone else sees as the bad point, but there’s a lot more to it than that. We haven’t played well at all the last couple of games.”
