By the fourth minute of the boys middle school basketball game, the Lions had already scored 10 points unanswered by the Kendall Demonstration Elementary team. Every shot taken by the Lions seemed to go in, and the crowd was going wild. By this time, the outcome of the game had become clear to the audience.

In the last few minutes of the first quarter, the Kendall team started to heat up and were fouled by the Lions, but they only managed to score four points.

This trend continued throughout the whole game, as the Lions held on to the lead but also drew unnecessary fouls with many turnovers. It was a decisive 42-19 win for the Lions, but according to coach Brad Pinchback, not the players’ best game.

“We kind of played down a little bit to the level of the competition. I didn’t purposely let up, I didn’t think the kids purposely let up, but I just talked to them about not playing down to the level of competition,” Pinchback said. “We want to play excellent basketball no matter what.”  

In the second quarter, there were many missed shot opportunities and turnovers. After a sequence of fouls and fastbreaks, one Kendall player was able to score all nine of the Kendall points in the quarter by himself, while the Lions team only scored eight that quarter. Even with the dominating performance by the opposing player, the Lions were still able to pull out with the lead for the first half.

In the third quarter, eighth-grader Jonah Gross overcame early foul trouble to lead the Lions’ rout over Kendall with 11 points. He began with two fastbreak layups followed by a pair of three-pointers and the crowd went wild with excitement. The only response from the Kendall team was a layup and two free throws.

Eighth-grader Matan Silverberg thought that Gross played the best in the game.

“Jonah played really well because at the beginning he was in foul trouble, he was upset and he came back in and played really well,” Silverberg said.

So far, Pinchback has led the Lions to a 4-0 season and believes that they are seriously good enough to have a record season.

“Last game we played very well, we probably beat one of the toughest teams in this league in St. Anselm’s. We ended up winning by two points, great assists, we had great teamwork,” Pinchback said. “Matter of fact, the game-winning basket was typical of how well we play … it’s great when you have that type of ball movement,”

Other CESJDS players like eighth-graders Todd Lazoff, Aaron Fenster and Josh Einhorn contributed greatly as well, scoring ten, six and six points respectively.

Silverberg said with the turnovers and fouls adding up, it is lucky for the team that it was not a closer game. While he thinks the team is very good, he believes they need to practice to make fewer careless mistakes in the future.

“I feel like we played alright, but I feel like we could have played a lot better considering that team was not very good and that was not our best performance,” Silverberg said. “I missed a lot of shots and could have done better, and we all could have done better.”