By Michael Letendre
ENFIELD – The Bristol Eastern boys basketball team is off to the races in terms of offensive efficiency to start the 2023-24 campaign.
It began with a pleasing 66-50 win in Plainville to open the campaign and then this past Tuesday, the Lancers led nearly wire-to-wire over the program’s 75-61 demolition at Enfield High School.
The games were stern contests for the Kingstreeters (2-0) and even though the team has been ultra-successful out of the gate, there’s always room for improvement as the ceiling is extremely high for this team from Bristol.
“This team is going to do a lot of good things throughout the year [and] hopefully correct some things that have been going on,” said Eastern coach Bunty Ray.
However, Ray has seen so many positives over the first couple games.
Eastern is averaging 70.5 points-per-game and while that’s just a small sample space, that number is an impressive start.
The Lancers are shooting 47-percent from the field and draining a credible 36-percent from three-point territory.
There’s been plenty of offensive balance with Lukas Sward (17.5 points-per-game), Zaveyn Tate (16.5 ppg), Jordan Chisholm (13.0 ppg) and Brayden Dauphinais (10.5 ppg) leading the charge.
And if Brady Bell (6.5 ppg), an excellent rebounder and defender, is your fifth leading scorer, your team is in pretty good shape.
Some of that scoring ability – thanks in part to a pesky defense that has limited opponents to shoot just under 36-percent from the field – has come over tremendous spurts that’s left opponents dazed and confused, calling multiple timeouts to stop the offensive onslaught.
Consistency is the key and Ray would like to see a little bit more of that on the court because when the Eastern program is in the groove, the team is nearly impossible to slow down.
In that big win at Enfield, Eastern held a 30-point edge midway through the third period – hitting 15-of-20 shots from the field over one stretch.
But the Lancers went a combined 11-for-36 before and after the run for a shooting clip of 30.6-percent.
Those are some of the areas the program will be working on as the season progresses.
However, that big glimpse into the possible havoc Eastern could employ on the court is certainly a sign that things are flowing in the right direction.
“As good as we played in spurts, we’ve still got to get a lot better which is a good sign,” said Ray. “That means we’re not hitting anywhere near the ceiling where we think we could be.”
“We have to just keep evolving as the season goes on.”
Scoring bonanza
So, when was the last time the Lancers scored 75 or more points in a game?
The date was February 17, 2015, as Eastern traveled to Platt for a CCC South showdown.
Then coach Mike Giovinazzo led his troops to a huge win, dropping the Panthers by a 97-62 final in a contest that could have easily reached 100 points.
Kevin Love was rolling that night, posting 27 points for Eastern, as the team was clicking right from the jump-ball.
Shipping off to Platt tonight
Speaking of Platt, that’s the match-up of the evening as Eastern travels to Meriden tonight for a 6 p.m. tilt against a very young Panthers’ program.
Platt dropped its opening contest at home to Manchester (62-58) on Tuesday night.
This is a critical game for the Lancers, perhaps the toughest to date, but if Eastern can contain all those players and take advantage of any youthful Platt mistakes like they did at Enfield, the Kingstreeters will have every chance to knock off the Panthers on the road.
“Every test is going to be a little bit different,” said Ray. “That’s a very young team [Enfield] had out there but very talented. Age doesn’t matter when you have that kind of talent. For us, going out and getting the win on the road is nice.”
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