Lombardi's 24 Points Leads Boys Hoops Over Bourne

The Nantucket boys basketball team went on the road Monday afternoon and earned a convincing 84-53 victory over the Bourne Canalmen to improve their record to 2-0. The win snapped a four-game win streak the Canalmen had over Nantucket after weeping the two-game season series in each of the past two seasons.

Led by a 24 point effort from sophomore guard Burke Lombardi and 16 points from senior guard Vallon Jeanty, Nantucket shook off a sluggish defensive start that saw the Whaler’s holding a tight 38-34 lead at halftime.

“We struggled with energy coming out,” Nantucket head coach Willis Ferreira said. “We couldn’t play any defense but thank God in the second half we switched up defenses and it gave (Bourne) some trouble. Then we started to get rolling. Once we got a few stops, then offensively we got hot and we took care of business. It just took too long.”

Nantucket outscored the Canalmen 46-19 in the second half, and Ferreira credited that turnaround to his team’s ability to pick up their play in transition and to tighten up defensively, which forced turnovers and allowed Nantucket to pick up the pace of the game.

“I mean, that’s the first time we’ve played this year on the road, we realized how bad we are on the road, but then they kicked it into gear after that,” Ferreira said. "I just think that the defense picked up the offense. We were able to stop them from scoring. We got some steals. We were able to get some run outs. We were able to get layups, then we ended up getting some transition threes. When no one's guarding us. it is a little easier to play when there's nobody guarding you. When you come down and let them score, and now you got to walk it down and got to get the halfcourt set, we're much better in transition.”

Yuri Saunders and Joao Silva finished with eight points each and provided some solid secondary scoring. 12 Whalers tallied points in this game.

Nantucket then traveled to Dennis-Yarmouth Tuesday afternoon and won 70-45. Lombardi led the team in scoring again with 27 points while Gaven Smith and Silva had 10 points each.

The Whalers, now 3-0, will have a few days off for Christmas and be back in action when they travel to Abington on Saturday, December 27^th for a 1 p.m. game.

To view more photos from Monday afternoon's game, click here.