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Varsity and JV basketball teams drop season openers

BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO Varsity basketball player Luke Gilpin draws a crowd in traffic as Eric Thilberg cuts to the hoop in Monday night’s home loss to Hampton Bays.
BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO
Varsity basketball player Luke Gilpin draws a crowd in traffic as Eric Thilberg cuts to the hoop in Monday night’s home loss to Hampton Bays.

The Shelter Island School junior varsity and varsity boys basketball teams dropped their home openers in a non-league game against Hampton Bays Monday night.

In the JV game, the Indians were down 13-12 at the end of the first quarter. Center Nick Young had the hot hand, scoring 10 of his team-high 14 points in the opening period. Freshman guard Lucas Quigley Dunning contributed 9 points.

Hampton Bays dominated the backboards and managed to push the ball up the court for some easy baskets. The visitors built a 46-24 advantage by the end of the third quarter and posted a 61-32 final score.

Coach Ian Kanarvogel was pleased with his team’s overall effort, but said he sees room for improvement and areas of the game to work on.

In the varsity game, the Indians played tough, trailing Hampton Bays 9-8 at the end of the first quarter. But the Baymen began to accelerate their defensive intensity in the second period, causing numerous turnovers and converting them into easy baskets.

The Indians trailed at halftime 25-15 and 33-21 after the third period.

Junior captain Luke Gilpin scored a team-high 9 points and led the team in rebounding as well. Freshman point guard Kal Lewis contributed 8 points but the Indian offense struggled throughout the second half, scoring just 9 points. The team shot only 34 percent from 2-point range and didn’t nail a shot from beyond the arc in 10 tries.

The team totaled 31 turnovers in the season opener, and Coach Jay Card felt this reflected a lack of varsity experience and some opening game jitters, resulting in too many “self-inflicted” mistakes, he said. But the coach also reminded his team it’s still early in the season and players need to continue to grow and learn from their mistakes. With all of the new varsity players this year, it’s going to take patience, hard work and experience to steadily improve their overall play, especially their offensive skills,the coach said.

All seven varsity players got valuable playing time and hopefully with time, they will grow as a team.

The next game for both the JV and the  varsity teams will be on December 7 at The Ross School.