While the girls varsity basketball team came out and defeated Blue Valley North by a wide margin directly before the boys game, the opposite outcome occurred for the BVNW boys varsity basketball team. BVNW suffered an overwhelming loss, exiting the court with a final score of 40-63.

Beginning with the tipoff, BVN defeated BVNW; BVN scored their first two points within the first 30 seconds. They scored again, again and again until BVNW found themselves behind 0-16 with 1:46 left in the first quarter. BVNW’s first points came when junior Michael Dennis was fouled, shot and made two of his three free throws. With six seconds left in the first quarter, senior Dalton Schoen, BVNW’s leading scorer of the game with nine points, shot and scored BVNW’s only three-pointer of the night. At the end of the first quarter, BVNW trailed BVN 5-16.

“We got off to an unbelievably bad start,” head coach Ed Fritz said. “We couldn’t come out and hit a shot. We shot eight percent from three point today, one out of 12. It wasn’t a very good game; the thing that I was really disappointed with was how flat we were. Not much emotion, nobody talking, and it’s got to be better.”

The boys basketball team continued to trail BVN in the second quarter, however they did manage to close the huge gap from the first quarter. After being fouled in the second quarter, Schoen made both free throws, sophomore Tristen Hull made one of his two free throws, senior James Atwood made one of his two and sophomore AJ Pleasant made both. Pleasant’s brother freshman Joseph Pleasant made all four of his free throws, which all contributed to a final score of the first half of 17-25, BVNW still trailing BVN.

“[The best part of the game was] the way we fought back initially in the second quarter,” Schoen said. “We did a good job of getting to the basket and getting fouled and making our free throws.”

BVN came out in the third quarter shooting, scoring two points in eight seconds, stealing the ball in BVNW’s next possession and scoring two more points with 7:37 left in the quarter. BVN continued to rack up points, scoring 19 points in this quarter alone, lengthening their lead to 27-46 at the end of the third quarter with a buzzer-beating two-point shot.

“I think [the weakest aspect of the game] was a total lack of focus and effort that was really bad, and then compound that with unbelievably bad shooting and then not doing very well with our principle defensively, and this is what you get,” Fritz said.

In the fourth quarter, BVNW continued to make their free throw shots, but it proved to not be enough to defeat BVN, who consistently made their shots, solidifying their lead and, ultimately, their win. With the conclusion of the game, BVNW was defeated by BVN 40-63.

“We know that if we play good that we can beat anyone because we beat [Bishop] Miege and [Saint Thomas] Aquinas when we were playing well, and those are the best two teams in the league,” Schoen said. “But for some reason, we don’t show up every night and we need to fix that.”

The boys basketball team will play their next game against Blue Valley West at on February 20 at 7:30 PM at BVW.