As the final minutes approached, Westfield tried to dig themselves out of a point deficit of five caused by turnovers and rebounds in the fourth quarter against Union Catholic. As the scoreboard read 49-54 with UC leading and 2 minutes left, there was little hope. In the end, the Blue Devils were unsuccessful and ultimately fell to Union Catholic 51-58.
With Westfield’s lead scorer and senior tri-captain, Max MacEacheron, back on the court after a two-game suspension, the team attempted to defeat the Vikings in a rematch game. MacEacheron had the game high of 26 points and 5 three-pointers, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
MacEacheron said, “We started this third quarter very low, which put us into a hole that we tried our best to get out of but couldn’t.” The Blue Devils are looking to work on their plays during practice to better perform in games.
The boys fell behind by 10 points after the first quarter and could not find a way to push through the rest of the game. Despite their high energy and drive to win, the Blue Devils struggled with turnovers.
Head coach James McKeon said, “When we executed, everything worked, and the turnovers killed us tonight. I think we gave 20 turnovers, so that’s 20 fewer opportunities we have and 20 more they have.”
The third quarter saw most of the turnovers, with seven straight to begin the second half. The coaches’ frustration was evident when the entire starting lineup was subbed out at once in an attempt to change the pace.
This was the second time the Blue Devils had faced UC, so they knew to study UC’s strengths and exploit their weaknesses. Senior tri-captain Jake Russell said, “We shot pretty well. We found open shooters. We knew they were gonna collapse and overhelp, so we knew the shooters were gonna be out there.”
The team is now 5-15 and back in action on Feb. 5 at 4:00 p.m. against Madison, hoping to improve on turnovers and rebounding to come out on top. This game is their antepenultimate game of the regular season.
