The boys’ varsity basketball season is underway after the first home game against Bayside High School on Nov. 19. Although West Shore did not win, the team said it has high expectations for the rest of the season.

Junior and center Ethan Marana said he believed the game slipped out of their hands.

“We could have won, but we fell off in the first quarter,” Marana said.

Bayside scored 71 points compared to West Shore’s 45 points.

“I think we dribbled too much, and we should’ve just passed it up, because we just couldn’t really dribble on them, and they would just take the ball from us every time,” Marana said.

Despite Bayside’s early lead, West Shore scored similarly to Bayside in the last three quarters.

“I was proud of how our team continued to play after such a large deficit in the beginning and how my teammates stayed together and weren’t demoralized,” junior and center Boston Boucher said.

Boucher said the team could have approached the game differently to win against Bayside.

“In the future, we need to come out stronger from the tipoff and not allow our opponents to get such an advantage,” Boucher said. “We need to continue to work on our chemistry and working together on offense.”

Despite the loss, Marana said he felt that the lessons they learned from the game would help them win more games in the future.

“We’ll keep our heads up because we have more games this week,” Marana said.

By Shoaib Ahmed