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Boys bag first league win over Ross

BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO | Tristan Wissemann soaring to the goal in Shelter Island's victory over The Ross School Tuesday.
BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO | Tristan Wissemann soaring to the goal in Shelter Island’s victory over The Ross School Tuesday.

The Shelter Island School  boys varsity basketball team overcame a brutal loss to Smithown Christian to take their first league victory over The Ross School at home Tuesday.

The boys won going away, 65-38. Overall, the Indians are 3-4 after the confidence building win over Ross.

The Islanders began the game slowly, only up 10-9 at the end of the first quarter. Coach Jay Card Jr. decided to try a 1-3-1 half court trap against the Cosmos and it worked quite well. The Indians also played a man-to-man full court press and picked up their defensive pressure.

This resulted in a decisive 20-5 second quarter advantage which gave the Indians a 16 point halftime lead.

Shelter Island kept up their defensive intensity in the third quarter, which led to points at the other end, out scoring their opponents 28-11, for a 58-20 lead.

The team was led by Junior Tristan Wissemann who scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. He shot a perfect five for five from behind the arc and only missed one shot during the entire game.

Junior Billy Boeklen had a solid performance with 18 points, 8 rebounds and 4 steals. Semaj Lawrence also scored 12 points and collected 9 rebounds.

It was a different story when the team visited Smithtown Christian on Thursday, January 8.

The Indians gave up 47 points in the second half and were trounced 65-46 in front of a large Smithtown homecoming crowd.

Shelter Island did make a run late in the second quarter for a 20-18 lead by halftime. But a 22-7 third quarter beating proved to be decisive and ignited a 25-19 fourth quarter performance by the home team.

On the bright side, the Indians shot well from both 3-point and range and the foul line, but were a dismal 9 of 36 (25 percent) from 2-point range. The Islanders also committed a season high 19 turnovers, which just added to their frustrations.

Simply put, it was not a good team performance, but the team put the loss behind then and displayed teamwork and hustle to achieve the rousing victory over Ross Tuesday.

The team travels to Sag Harbor Thursday for a key match-up with the Pierson Whalers.

Tip-off is 6:15 p.m..