The No. 8 Cranston West boys basketball team held off visiting No. 9 Coventry 54-47 in last week’s Division II preliminary round to advance against undefeated, top-seeded Lincoln in the quarters.

Senior captain Jaymien Aponte had a career-best 26 points to lead the Falcons to their first playoff win since 2019.

“I can’t say enough about Jaymien Aponte. He’s the face of Cranston West basketball and we’re here because of who he is as a player and a person. He’s a great captain and a great leader, he had a career night. He earned everything he got,” said West coach James Sweeney after the win.

West jumped out to a fast start and controlled the pace throughout the first half. The Oakers came out strong in the third quarter and grabbed their first lead, 32-30, with 3:25 remaining in the period.

The Falcons rolled from there to regain the lead by the end of the quarter and put away the win in the fourth.

Adreyan Perez finished with 10 points for West while Ryan Zarrella added seven.

“I’m the guy and this is my team but we have a lot of players and they showed out and played their roles tonight. Ryan Zarrella is a dog, Adreyan Perez is an another dog, everyone was clicking as a team,” said Aponte, who also credited Perez’ sharp-shooting in the win as he hit a 3-pointer in the final two minutes to give West a seven-point lead and ice the game. “He’s the best shooter in the state. Once he gets going, he’s hard to stop. Once he was there, he was there.”

“He’s a big time shot maker and someone that has an amazing confidence in himself. He just seems to make the big one when we need it,” added Sweeney of Perez’ impact.

The Falcons advanced to face the Lions on Tuesday night but the results were unavailable at press time.

Sweeney was pleased with the team’s energy against the Oakers and hopes it continues to roll into the next round.

“We have a mentally tough group and a really good team that knows how to use their emotions in a positive way. It was the first time that we won a playoff game as a group and the first since 2019 for our program. I’ll never take the emotion away, it makes us who we are,” said Sweeney.

Aponte hopes to prove the state wrong and pull off the upset against the high-flying Lions, who many feel is the state’s best team, even including Division I clubs.

“Everybody is counting us out, we’re the underdogs and everyone wants Lincoln to win. We want to shock the world and show everyone that West isn’t the underdog,” Aponte said. “There’s pressure on us because we want to prove people wrong, but there’s pressure on them, too. We’ve just got to show out.”