Connor Whelan drives and puts the ball up, scoring a rather hopeless two for Westfield, which only trims Union Catholic’s lead to 27. The last time Union Catholic did not hold a lead was in the first minute of the game, before they broke the 0-0 tie with a three pointer.
The first quarter began slowly, with the first points coming from the aforementioned UC three pointer over a minute into the game. Then, falling back onto defense, they held Westfield to nine points to secure a 10-point lead at the end of the first.
The beginning of the second quarter looked very promising to Westfield, as they outscored Union Catholic 11-5 down to the last 2 minutes of the half. Those last two minutes, however, were totally controlled by the Vikings, scoring 10 points in quick succession, 4 being the product of steals. Coming out of the half, Westfield’s momentum was gone and UC took over once again up to the end of the game.
Judging from the stat sheet, Westfield played a good game despite losing to the Vikings 51-78, with junior Enzo Ferrero scoring 14 and senior captain Shane Sheehan with 15. In person, however, the game was littered with turnovers which cut Westfield possessions short and allowed UC to score easy points.
Union Catholic has a good, well rounded team, with plenty of size and shooting capabilities. This makes it difficult to find a weakness to exploit or find an offensive or defensive scheme that works against them. “We’ve thrown out a bunch of different defenses at them, but they’ve seemed to adjust a lot better than us,” said junior Zach Epp. “They have a lot of size, and we just weren’t able to compete with that.”
The Vikings differ from Westfield’s other competition with their ability to recruit. “They’re definitely a good team, they’ve got a lot of good players from all around. A lot of the other teams we play don’t recruit, so I think that that makes a difference,” said Sheehan. Their players come from all over, with their starting guard, AJ Altobelli, hailing from Westfield. He had 14 points, second only to UC’s other guard with 21.
The Blue Devils’ head coach, James McKeon, defined their goals for the rest of this season. “Compete, win some games, make some noise in the state tournament,” he said. “This game doesn’t define us.” And that it does not. Over the past 11 games, Westfield has won 8, allowing them to break above the .500 mark after a rocky start to the season. A loss against a formidable opponent such as Union Catholic does not signify the end of their hot streak, but only serves as motivation for their upcoming games and tournament.
McKeon and the team will look to recapture their momentum with a win against Chatham this upcoming Friday at 4:00 p.m at Chatham High School.
