By ALEX SPONSELLER The Cranston West basketball team jumped out to a hot start this season with a 2-0 record, but suffered its first setback last week when the Burrillville Broncos rolled to a 46-33 win at West.

It was a low-scoring battle throughout the night and the Falcons would jump out to an early 7-2 lead. Burrillville would quickly erase the deficit and work its way to a 23-15 halftime lead.

The Broncos came out sharp in the second half, shutting down the Falcon offense and working their way to the 13-point victory.

“We couldn’t get into a rhythm, they took us out of the flow of what we wanted to do so we were kind of standing still, the ball sort of got stuck. We had some good looks driving to the paint but we weren’t converting. They did a good job of slowing us down and took away our break. We hung with them for a little bit but eventually, it seemed like everytime they were able to get conversions,” said West coach Mike Monahan after the loss.

Khalil Badru led the Falcons with eight points scored while Ayden Bliss, Ethan Ryan and Mike Paquette all added five. Burrillville was led by Wes Cournoyer and Jeff Cabral, who each recorded 11 points in the win.

Although West had its opportunities in the first half to build some momentum, Burrillville’s defense was stout in the second half and Monahan felt that his team’s intensity was not where it needed to be on its own defensive end.

“We went into halftime in a bit of a deficit and in the second half we just couldn’t turn the tide. We were playing soft. We were getting good shots, but to their credit they were playing solid fundamental defense. We just played soft, our guys didn’t want to make contact and they were able to break our press easily. They did a great job of sharing the ball, spreading us out, and we had to play catchup,” said Monahan.

The team went on to face Wheeler, but the results were not available at press time.

Despite the loss, Monahan has confidence in his senior-laden team and expects it to turn things around fast.

“You have to have a next play mentality, even when the game is over. Our practices were frontloaded this season and now they have to learn live in games. Most players are visual learners so they’ll have to pick it up during games,” said Monhahan. “You learn a lot more from a loss than a win, we’ll look at film and get back to it in practice. We have to get better, and in a condensed season, we will have to be adaptable.”