Boys Hoops Drop Home Matchup To Bourne

The Whaler boys basketball team welcomed the 2024 Div. 4 state championship runner ups – the Bourne Canalmen – to the island Monday afternoon for an afternoon matchup, and held their own in a 56-40 defeat that has Nantucket head coach Willis Ferreira encouraged by the progress his players are making each game.

“I’m very happy right now,” Ferreira said. “We just need to find some other guys who can come in and not disrupt what we’re trying to do. Those guys (starters) can’t play the whole game. They’re exhausted right? They’re on the defensive end just working. That is something we need to figure out as coaches is who are those guys who are going to come in and give those guys a breather. That’s fine too. We have a lot of young guys working hard. We need to do better coaching. A lot of that is on us.”

Nantucket played Bourne to a 14-14 tie after one quarter of play. Ferreira said it was “by far” the best quarter of basketball his team has played through the season’s first three games. Junior big man Ethan Jarrett led the Whalers with six first quarter points while freshman guard/forward Burke Lombardi had five points in the opening frame.

But in the second quarter with Jarrett and Lombardi on the bench, Bourne made their run. They scored the first 14 points of the quarter, and the Whaler’s first point didn’t come until a made free throw by Jarrett with 1:11 to go in the first half. The only other Nantucket basket of the second quarter was a Vallon Jeanty three-pointer in the final minute.

Nantucket’s defense was solid throughout the game, but second chance opportunities ultimately made the difference. Bourne was led by their two 1,000-point scorers in senior forward Mike Dankert (25 points) and junior big man Nate Reynolds (17 points). Those second chance points, along with some turnovers, helped Bourne take a 32-18 lead into halftime.

"Those two guys are tough," Ferreira said of Dankert and Reynolds. "They got great hands. They got great length. A lot of the problems we had, we created. Just bad decisions with the ball, turning it over, getting shots blocked, not making the extra pass. When we make the extra pass and we get open shots, we got some guys that can shoot, right? So just trusting each other. It's still early.

"And then we gave up too many second chance points," Ferreira continued. "Like the offensive rebounds, they get another possession. We work hard for one possession, we give them nothing, and then they get an offensive rebound and an easy put back. These are things we got to clean up. But overall, I was proud of the effort.”

The Whalers jumped out to a quick 6-0 run to begin the second half and made it 32-24 with six minutes left in the third quarter, but Bourne answered nicely with five quick points and held a 40-26 lead in the final couple of minutes of the third. Lombardi drilled a three-point shot towards the end of the third to make it 40-29. Bourne led 42-29 after three quarters.

Bourne never let the Whalers trim the deficit back to single digits in the final quarter and held on for the 56-40 victory. The loss dropped Nantucket’s record to 1-2 this year, but Ferreira has seen lots of growth through this tough three game stretch (@Barnstable on Thursday, home against Martha’s Vineyard on Saturday, home against Bourne on Monday) to begin the season.

"We have seen lots of improvement definitely," Ferreira said. "And that kid (pointing at Lombardi as he walked by) gets better every day, every second. We got to find a way to get him more touches. He's good defensively too. He is where he is supposed to be. But overall, turnovers and second chance points (for Bourne) were the difference in the game today. We are further along defensively than offensively. Liam (Bruno, first year assistant coach) has done a good job putting the defense in. We just need to play like we did in the first quarter, every quarter.”

Nantucket will now have a couple of weeks off before resuming their regular season on Tuesday, January 7^th on the road against the Falmouth Clippers at 3:30 p.m. More photos below, all taken by Current Sports Photographer Chris Tran.