Boy ballers drop season opener

The Blazer basketball team came out Tuesday night, December 10, against a decent Paint Branch team and played horribly in a 48-68 loss to the Panthers. The Blazers had trouble rebounding against a slightly bigger team and had a lot of trouble running their offense, only managing to score 48 points. This game was definitely a season opener to forget.

Blair was without one of its team leaders, senior Alonzo Woods. Woods was suspended for one game by Coach Jeff Newby for a scuffle in a recent scrimmage. Without Wood's firepower, fellow senior Ryan Sessoms stepped up his game by dropping 14 points and leading the Blazers in scoring. However, Sessoms was the only one who was having much success scoring. Senior center/forward James Platky did not score at all, although he was the only effective rebounder on the squad.

The Blazers had trouble boxing the Panthers out from the start. The Panthers had many second-chance points and, as the game progressed, started to beat the Blazers in the transition game, which has been Blair's strong suit. On a team full of small forwards, scoring and fast breaks should not be much of a problem, but on Tuesday night the Blazers had zero luck with either.

Paint Branch's main scoring threat was senior forward David Oluwatimilehin, who dropped a game-high 18 points. Next week Paint Branch has a tough game against the Gaithersburg Trojans.

Next up for the Blazers is the biggest game of this young season against the rival Springbrook Blue Devils. According to Platky, the Blazers have a lot of work to do in order to beat the seasoned Springbrook team.