On Saturday February 17, the boys varsity basketball team competed against Westminster for their chance to become Kent’s first Founder’s League Champions. After a recent tough loss to Taft, Coach Coulombe still had great confidence in the team’s chances against Westminster.

“Taft is a great team; they played a solid game and we just didn’t have it on the day.” Often that’s the case in sports, as even the best teams get outplayed from time to time. Coach Coulombe noted that their game against Taft was the 10th consecutive day of hard training, so he gave them a day off on Thursday, and on Friday the team sharpened up with “a great practice.”

With the game being at Kent, there was a fantastic turnout of fans to support the teams. Westminster kept it close during the first half, but they boys “found their groove in the second half” and turned a ten-point margin into a blowout, ultimately winning 102-65.

Many people, including Coach Coulombe, were surprised by the high score of the game. They “only played for 32 minutes,” which means that both teams combined averaged an astounding 5.21 points per minute. In analyzing the game, Coach Coulombe pointed out how “uneven” performance was and that the “defensive effort and offensive decision-making was inconsistent at best.” But in such an up-tempo game, they “were able to pull away with the win” due to the team’s “overall physical talent and stamina.”

Although the team is excited about clinching the Founders League Title, they still know there is a lot of work to be done to compete for a New England Championship. Coach Coulombe said he had a “quick talk with the boys about the win on Saturday, but after that I told them to forget about it, as they need to stay focused on these next two games against Hotchkiss and Trinity Pawling.”

These two games will be crucial for the team’s seeding in the New England Championship Tournament in March, so it will be exciting to see if they can keep focused during the last two weeks of Winter Term.