Boys Basketball Drops To 8-2 On The Season

The Whaler boys basketball team (8-2) lost to Cape Cod Academy (9-0) 75-61 Tuesday night. Senior guard Justin Bloise led Nantucket with 20 points while CCA guard Jaeden Greenleaf, who passed the 2,000 point mark for his high school career last week, led his team with 31 points.

“I thought we played extremely hard but we got killed on the boards somehow,” Whaler head coach Willis Ferreira said. “We have to learn how to box out and not just be jumpers. It doesn’t work against a team like this. We missed a lot of foul shots early but I thought our effort was good and we played hard as hell. It just didn’t translate to the final score.”

The Whalers played tremendous defense in the first half, holding the Seahawks to 31 first half points as the Whalers entered halftime up 33-31. Greenleaf was held in check by the Whalers with Bloise guarding him on most of the possessions. Greenleaf scored just nine points in the first half. Nantucket’s athleticism appeared to be giving the Seahawks, who are a larger and stronger team, problems. Ferreira said that first half was good experience for his younger players who haven’t played in many big games or against as talented of teams like Cape Cod Academy.

“We have to be better,” Ferreira said. “I have a lot of young guys playing in big games for the first time. Sometimes their emotion gets the best of them. We have to learn from it, but I feel like we will. We have to try to teach them better on our end from a coaches perspective.”

Several players found themselves in foul trouble entering the second half of play and it allowed the Seahawks to get to the free throw line at will. Greenleaf led the way with 22 second half points while sophomore center Kelvin Danforth dominated the boards and finished with 13 points on the night. The Seahawks as a team went on to score 44 second half points to seal the win.

“We need to get better mentally,” Ferreira said. “Too much complaining, too much blaming people. At the end of the day, if a ref makes a call that’s it. The whistle was blown. I’ll have their backs and talk to the refs, I just want them to go play.”

Ferreira said he knows his team can avenge this loss in a couple of weeks when they host CCA on Tuesday, February 8, at 5 pm in the NHS Gym.

“I know the score says we lost by 14 but we can beat this team,” he said. “We play them again in our own building, on a bigger floor, and we will have our home crowd behind us.”

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