The basketball season tipped off last Tuesday night against Westminster as the season opener, and the program took the ball running. The varsity boys team worked hard, but fell to Westiminster barely with a score of 56-53.

“The first game was a little rough to start the season. We were rusty in the first half, but we turned it around in the second half. Westminster is a good team, and it was a good fight,” sophomore Trevor North said.

With fall and winter seasons clashing, it was hard for the boys to prepare and have the entire team at a practice together to get everything in line for a game.

“It is hard to be ready for a game like that when you have a football and a soccer season crossing over, so you have players missing because they are in a different postseason. It didn’t go our way in the end, but there are a lot of positives to build off of,” senior Brendan Deters said.

The boys are hungry to win this season and it shows. Monday night the Crusaders brought home their first win of the season with a 69-60 defeat over Lafayette.

Junior Ryan Schwendeman had 27 on the board against Lafayette, leading the Crusaders in points.

“Hopefully I can keep bringing that amount of points a game, but it isn’t just me—expect my teammates to have big games too!” Schwendeman said.

As the tournament continued on, last night the boys brought home another win with the score of 74-66 and Schwendeman with a killer 32 points followed by senior Anthony Lewis with 14 on the board.

“This tournament was a good opportunity for us and it was also a lot of fun to go back and play at Troy because it is my old school so it helped give an advantage on the court,” Deters said.

Sadly the boys fell to Howell in the championship game 70-65 but that won’t stop them from playing their best this season. Don’t miss out as the boys continue their season this week when they play at home on Wednesday at 7pm!