Boys’ Varsity Basketball Wins In Overtime
The Francis Lewis Patriots Boys’ Varsity Basketball team faced a close game on November 26 as they took the 65-64 win in overtime against Queens High School of Teaching at home.
The Patriots had a strong start to the game, but their opponents slowly gained on them, taking a three point lead in the last few seconds of the 4th quarter. Elijah Pratt, who led the team in scoring with 21 points, had all the pressure on him as he shot the game tying three pointer.
“I knew we needed to make a play,” Pratt said. “Tyler King looked at me while QHST was shooting at the foul line and he put up 3 fingers. Once we inbounded the ball I knew he’d look for me so I just made sure I was ready to shoot.”
Co-captain Davian Hall, who had a 18 total rebounds, fouled out of the game during overtime but still contributed to the positive mentality of the team without being on the court.
“We had to be patient and composed,” Hall explained. “We had to play above our standards. There’s only 4 minutes in OT– anything can happen. We would need to put ourselves in a position [where] we can secure the win.”
The game was still tied in the last seconds of overtime as both teams scored 8 points. With 0.5 seconds left on the clock, junior Aidan Nunez was fouled and made his first one and one free throw to win the game.
“I was just thinking that I had to close out and keep my calm,” Nunez recalled. “I feel that I should’ve played way better than I did, but I’m just trying to worry about our next game and take it step by step. I’m still glad we got the win, but there’s still some things we have to work on as a team.”
Though they did not play to their best potential, they still came out with a victory and remain atop in their division.
“I am happy we were able to pull out a victory while learning a valuable lesson about how to properly finish out a basketball game,” Coach Ciarleglio said. “After the game we were disappointed in a lot of the decisions we made going down the stretch. It’s still early in the season and the boys are eager for another opportunity to show they learned from how poorly we managed the end of the game.”
