Following their Liberty District championship and season-opening win against Madison, the McLean varsity boys basketball team faced off against the Mount Vernon Majors in the annual tip-off tournament and first home game.
The win against Madison meant big things for this McLean team, as they lost to them last year in regionals. That revenge game gave high hopes for this team.
“We were all excited at a chance for two wins in a row, and were focused on coming out strong,” sophomore forward Nahom Kidane said. “That was our point of struggle at Madison.”
The Highlanders came into the game with excitement for their first home game and a chance to prove that they belong at the top.
The game started off with some back-and-forth action; no team was proving to be markedly better than the other. The momentum began to shift when Kidane had two blocks, It looked like McLean was going to run away with it.
McLean took a commanding 17-11 lead to end the quarter.
The second quarter was less of a success for McLean, as they allowed a big 6-0 run by Mount Vernon, forcing Coach Mike O’Brien to call a timeout.
“Coach was insistent on telling everybody to pump fake when going for a layup as they were eager to go for blocks,” Kidane said. “We struggled with finishing around the rim.”
After the timeout, McLean began to let the game slip away from them late in the second. The Highlanders ended the quarter up by seven points, but were inconsistent in offense plays.
The ideas O’Brien instilled into the boys during halftime must have worked, as they came out into the second half with vengeance. It started with quick baskets from Senior Jake Bell and Senior Nick Karageorgos, two standout players. But some foul trouble and missed passes caused McLean to overheat and begin to show signs of poor play. Mount Vernon was still not playing well, but had crucial plays which gave fans of the Majors hope in a win.
The fourth quarter was a showing of dominance by Mount Vernon not leaving any doubt that they were the better team. McLean’s lead began to dwindle, and they seemed to lose all the pieces of a good team they had earlier. With foul trouble, missed passes and poor defense, they were a shadow of the team that played in the first quarter.
McLean lost the game 60-57 and showed that there were a lot of places for improvement.
“We needed to focus on boxing out in the latter half of the game and taking care of the ball while making the right reads,” Kidane said.
This game marks the first learning opportunity for McLean; they have a lot of new players, some of whom don’t know what the game looks like at a varsity level. McLean has a lot of potential to go back-to-back.
“It’s early in the year, we have a lot of young guys, not too many returners, so getting experience like this in these close games at the end, win or loss, is a good thing,” Assistant coach Eric Stokes said.
