By: Zach Feinstein ’18

The Wrecker’s boys’ basketball team lost to the Darien Blue Wave by a score of 67-55 in the Staples gym on Tuesday, Feb. 6.

This game marked the Wreckers’ third straight loss falling to 3-13 on the season.

While Darien focused on stopping the Wreckers’ duo of Luke Murphy ’21 and Max Sussman ’18,  Sam Maged ’20 and Jake Thaw ’20 led the way for Staples, each scoring 8 points and added two assists.

With a score of 11-6 with 50 seconds left in the first quarter, Jake Thaw ’20 drove to score his first points of the game.

The Wreckers finally came within eight points with 3:18 left in the second quarter.

Ben Pearl ’18, the captain of the Wreckers and floor general, drove and scored his first points of the game with 3:09 left in the half to inch the Wreckers to within six.

The score at the half was 36-22 with Darien in the lead.

Throughout the third quarter, Darien guards Will Rolapp ’19 and Justin Jordan ’18 continued to pour out basket after basket to give Darien a 42-31 lead with 3:47 left in the third quarter.

Wreckers’ captain Max Sussman ’18 was held scoreless in the first three quarters before he energized the crowd with 10 points in the fourth quarter.

“I think that it was good to get our captain Max Sussman going. His shots fueled us to work harder Stedman Van Arsdale ’18 said.”

With 6:40 left in the fourth quarter and the score 47-32 Sussman hit his first of two threes on two consecutive drives, adding to his point total with 10 for the game.  

Tristan Hochman ’18 made a contested layup with 4:26 left in the fourth quarter and drew the foul. This and-one erupted the crowd as the Wreckers were down 54-44.

With 3:57 left in the fourth quarter and Staples down 64-55, Max Sussman ’18 hit his second three of the game as Staples attempted a massive comeback.

“I think something we are going to take from this game is the effort we gave in the second half,” Dylan Honig ’19 said. “We were down big but got it close in the third and fourth, just couldn’t pull it out.”

The Darien Blue Wave clinched the win with a final score of 67-55 and are now sitting at 7-9 on the season.

“What we need to improve on before the next game is offensive execution,” Honig said. “We know our plays well, but sometimes are hesitant getting into sets, therefore we have lapses in the half court set which has negatively affected us this season.”

Staples looks to rebound on Friday, Feb. 9 and gain a win that would bring them to 4-13 on the year.