The Ballenas Whalers senior boys basketball team continued their winning ways on Tuesday night, disposing of the Barsby Bulldogs at home.
Leading the way for the Whalers in their 53-31 victory was Aaron Paetkau with 18 points. Brendan Harstaad had 14 points in a physical game against the always-tough Bulldogs.
“We didn’t play well,” coach Taylor Wilson said. “We played down to the level of our competition, so it wasn’t pretty.”
“The boys were a little nervous playing at home; they got away from the game plan we wanted to execute so it was tough. We did come out with the win though, so that’s a positive to take away from it for sure.”
Hosting the North Islands this season, the Whalers will need to get used to playing in front of friends and family if they’re going to continue to have success going forward.
“We need to keep getting better,” Wilson said. “I think we might have been a little over-confident heading into this game against Barsby after winning the tournament in North Vancouver, so it was a wake-up call for us for sure.”
“We’ve got a few things to work on, a few things we can fix and we’ll be looking to make sure we do that this weekend at our tournament at Mark Isfeld in Comox.”