The Cranston West boys basketball team fell to host Lincoln last week 66-40 to drop to 3-4 in league play this season.

The Falcons played a competitive first half and trailed 29-20 at the halftime break, but the Lions’ shooters came out hot in the third quarter and exploded for a 23-5 run in the eight minutes to put the game out of reach. The Lions sank five 3-pointers in the eight-minute run.

Marcus Chung led the Falcons with eight points scored, including two 3-pointers. Adreyann Perez added six points, all coming in the fourth quarter.

“Lincoln is a very good team. They’re talented, well coached and have jumped out as one of the top teams in Division II at this point. We had our game plan going into the first half which I think we executed well. We knew that their shot making ability was a problem and it showed in the second half. They got hot and we broke down a little bit and we were slower to the ball than we wanted to be,” said West coach James Sweeney.

The Falcons have lost four straight contests, but have been competitive in each one. Sweeney and his staff are hoping the Falcons will find some consistency and play the way they did in the opening half against Lincoln.

“We’re at the point where we’re just trying to get better every single day. We can learn so many things and when we look back at the first couple minutes when we were hitting shots, playing good defense, we can see the positive and what we can be,” said Sweeney. “Then we have to look at and reflect on the bad. My job is to find a way for us to play a full 32 minutes and we have not done that as much as we were hoping we would at this point in the season.”

The Falcons are in the middle of a long off stretch with their next game coming this Sunday against Toll Gate. Although West is looking for answers, the players are not discouraged and feel that it is not too late to turn things around.

“We’ve gone through the gauntlet. We knew that the first eight or nine games would be a challenge, but I am proud of the kids for sticking with the process,” said Sweeney. “They have stayed positive, have worked hard and come to practice every single day. We’ve lost four in a row but the kids don’t feel that way. There is great energy at practice and the kids feel that they are right there, right where they need to be but with the acknowledgement that we have a long way to go.”