Martlets Knock Off Canterbury

After losing to Canterbury earlier in the season, the Martlets were eager for today’s rematch. Prior to tip-off, we made a few defensive adjustments and it was impressive how quickly our starters adjusted to the new scheme. As we built momentum on the defensive end of the floor, we needed a bit more time to get our offense going. Jeff Shao ’26 provided the spark we needed off the bench as he began exposing the soft spots in Canterbury’s zone. From there, we started catching fire. Finn Hocking ’26 and Connor Gray ’26 hit shots from the perimeter and Bennett Varao ’27 and Hudson Black ’27 established themselves on the interior. All the while, we received significant contributions on the defensive end of the floor from Julien Kocatas ’26, Arshaan Shah ’26, Jake Andreski ’25, and Rohan Satpathy ’27. In addition to elevating our defensive intensity, we also knew we needed to rebound better in today’s match up against Canterbury. Khang Ngo ’27, Enoch Olaosebikan ’27, and Derrick Logan ’27 were up for the task and battled hard against some talented Canterbury post players. After a back-and-forth first half, the Martlets were confident that today could end differently and handled Canterbury’s switch to man-to-man defense seamlessly. Liam Hibbard ’27 and Nick Ramsumair ’27 had a strong showing, looking to elevate our pace of play and attack the rim and Aidan O’Callaghan ’26 continues to be a steady engine pacing our team on both ends. As the second half ticked away, the lead changed several times, but with some excellent pick-and-roll actions and stalwart defense, we took a lead with two minutes left. Our defense held strong and Connor and Jeff hit some clutch free throws in the closing seconds to secure the win. It took a true team effort and some of our best basketball of the season to avenge our loss against a talented opponent. We will look forward to building on this momentum after a highly anticipated winter long weekend!