The JV boys basketball team faced FHN for a second time last week and the game ended in an unfortunate loss; they dropped to 4-13 after losing the home game to the district rivals 53-45.

The score going into halftime was 24-16 with the Rangers having a strong lead against the Huskies. However, throughout the third quarter, the whole game seemingly changed when defensive performances started to struggle and shots were being consistently missed. The Rangers trailed 38-32 going into the fourth. Sophomore guard Caden Harleton thought defense was the key issue.

“Not talking enough and just not pushing as hard on defense against their big man,” Harleton said. “Our defense was our biggest issue in this game; we just can’t be allowing this many points.”

According to sophomore Jackson Madigan, missing some open shots hurt the team.

“We were getting good shots in the stretch in the end, but we couldn’t knock them down and out-score them though,” Madigan said.

Sophomore Naveen Ram agreed that shooting was an issue.

“We weren’t able to get our shots to fall. I mean we were playing good defense but we really couldn’t get our shots to fall,” Ram said. “Our shots were easily our biggest issue. W were able to be nice and consistent with shooting in the first half, but we weren’t able to make it happen as well in the second half.”

A seemingly common consensus was found that the team was struggling mainly with their defense and shooting.  Many players were saying that they hope to mainly focus on fixing these issues and improving for their next game against EGR.

“Making sure we’re going all out and getting stops, just fixing the biggest problems is probably the best thing that we can do in our upcoming practices,” Madigan said.  “Just making sure that we can do all of the things in the first half and being able to translate it clearly into the second half is easily the most important part.”