With a minute remaining, West Shore and MCC were tied 35-35, bound for overtime. But as the clock ticked down, Melbourne Central Catholic junior Kasen Mckesson stole the ball and sank the game-winning shot just as the final buzzer sounded, ending West Shore’s season with a 37-35 loss on Feb. 8. 

Team Captain Garrett Martin, a junior, said the team was expecting to win the game but believes it took a turn because the players got in their heads.

“During the game we started to lose our heads,” Martin said. “What we need to change is the teams maturity and growing up in general.”

Coach Corey Burton said the game should have never come that close. 

“We are young and inexperienced,” Burton said. “ We couldn’t handle or deal with adversity well which we had talked about all season long. It was a common thing we struggled with.”

Furthermore, Burton said if they handled some things differently last night, they might have won the game.

“As coaches, we weren’t prepared for what [MCC] threw at us,” Burton said. “They used a junk defense which limited our two best scorers, setting us back.”

However, Burton said he takes full accountability for the lack of preparation towards their play. 

“That’s just how the game goes sometimes,” Burton said. “You’re not prepared for everything.”

Burton said he is proud of the team because of its overall growth from last season to this season.

“It was a season full of learning, maturing, and hammering out all the basics from a mentality standpoint,” Burton said. “We took a huge step up from last year. We were like a completely new team and the guys developed so much as the season went on.”

At the beginning of the season the team set goals to accomplish by the end. They completed some, but were not able to take care of them all.

“We unfortunately were not where we needed to be in the end,” Burton said. ”We fell short of our goals playoff-wise but we went .500 which was one of our main goals.”

But, Burton said not reaching all of their goals was not disappointing.

“I felt like we did what we were supposed to do as coaches and as players,” Burton said. “As a team we had a lot of camaraderie and we did a lot of team bonding, which was big for this group.”

Burton said the team (12-12) will use the offseason as a time to regroup, and preparations for next year will start after spring break.

“Now with this season behind us,” Burton said. “We can start to get into the actual X’s and O’s including game play and situational basketball, because we have all of the other aspects down.”

In the end, Martin said he is happy with how the season went.

“I’m happy with my teammates,” Martin said. “If I could go back, I would just let everyone know that we have the potential to do big things.”

The team will have its banquet on March 9 to celebrate the season and send off seniors Christopher Wood and Adrian Delia.

By Abegail Eason