This past weekend, Leyden’s varsity boys basketball team defeat Taft High School at West Leyden. With wanting to meet the opponents standards, it caused the boys to end half time with the score of 30-33. Losing at the end of halftime they knew they had to pick up the pace.

“Fatigue got to us because we were playing at their pace. They wanted the tempo to be fast pace so we could get tired and turn over the ball and at the end of the second quarter that was happening” (Robert Wisniewski, Varsity Basketball Captain)

Captain Wisniewski, explains that wanting to play like Taft caused them to get drained out quickly. As captain, he realized what Taft wanted them to do, which is wear them out quickly, so it would be an easy win for Taft. Being captain, they weren’t following the scouting report by not keeping an eye on #1, Almir Aliloski, (taft) and #3, Freddie Fitte, (taft).

“Number 1 was their guy who got them going, by hitting stops and driving to the rim while number 3 could really shoot the ball,” (Wisniewski). Their mission was to stop #1 from driving so he couldn’t pass the out to #3 to shoot.

“At the half we made the adjustments and realized we needed to control the tempo.” (Wisniewski

After halftime leading with a losing score, Eagles begin to change the way they started playing and begin to defeat taft at their own tempo.

“We thought #1 and #3 were going to be challenges for us, but we managed to shut them down.” (Guerrero)

Shutting down #1 and #3 gave opportunities such as Jo Quil Meeks (#23) to score 25 points for the team that night

“He was putting the ball in the basket and was just an overall monster,” (Wisniewski)

With Meeks finishing baskets cost them to end the game with the score of 70-65.