By Michael Letendre

BRISTOL – The Bristol Eastern boys basketball squad won big this past Thursday, dropping Plainville by a 54-24 final which allowed Lancers’ head coach Bunty Ray to play his entire bench that evening.  

And player 1-through-11 can all bring something different to the court at Eastern.

“We can go to eleven guys,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray. “On any given night, with their skillset, certain things in their toughness, certain guys can do certain things.”

The starting unit of Nate Fries, Brayden Dauphinais, Lukas Sward and Ben D’Amato – along with sophomore Zaveyn Tate – have plenty of varsity experience and know how to score.

But when that group needed a little lift, that second unit really stepped up.

The grouping of Naseem Walker, Jordan Chisholm, Isaiah Lawrence-Bynum and Dante DePass shot a combined 8-of-13 from the field for 20 total points.

Chisholm and DePass dropped in 4-of-8 three-point goals while those four tallied 49 minutes of on-court action.

DePass’s two 3s over second period play helped to turn things around for the home team and was a nice change of pace.

“You saw Donte’s energy threes,” said Ray of DePass. “He gave us a little break and I think we all calmed down. Lukas in the first half was just going fast, not getting us into anything and you saw when the ball moved and it touched people’s hands, we were able to then do some things.”

Sward was clutch when Plainville went to its full-court pressure and when he’s getting the ball past the crowd, it’s lay-up city for the junior.

“They tried to press us, we were able to get some easy hoops,” said Ray. “That’s the dagger. When you’re trying to press somebody, and you can’t turn them over and take care of the ball, it’s moving and they’re getting shots and lay-ups.”

“We shot a pretty low percentage from three-point [territory] but we were able to turn around and recognize to get the ball inside.”

It was tremendous what Eastern did in its 2-3 zone and the effect it had on Plainville’s shooters.

The zone forced the Blue Devils to shoot the ball from outside and that three-point attack resulted in an 0-for-11 showing.

In the end, those empty possessions really added up.

“It really made Plainville feel really uncomfortable about what they were trying to do and slowed those guards from going down hill,” said Ray about the Eastern zone.

Getting that first win under their belt is a big deal for that younger squad.

Last season, the Lancers started in a 1-5 rut and in the pandemic season of 2021, Eastern won its first game but went 2-9 the rest of the way.

Ray and crew hope that one win quickly leads to another and so on though the competition will be much tougher over the coming weeks.

“I always feel like we start [the season] in a hole so to get out” with a win is good said Ray. “There’s going to be some really tough games coming up. Any time you can get a win in this league, you have one under your belt and you know you can win. I said that to this team.”

“I said every night is going to be tough. We’ve got to execute.”

Eastern doesn’t have to leave the city limits to end 2022 which is a great bonus for the program.

In terms of crowd at the Eastern/Plainville game, several fans from each school were in attendance – making for a lively atmosphere at the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium on the campus of BEHS.

“Being at home, it’s a nice little atmosphere here tonight,” said Ray of the opening game. “I hope people saw that. They want to be around this team and watch how hard they work. It was nice the way we finished the game in the second half too.”

“I thought we really did some good things out there in the second half.”