With a score of 56-51, the Falcons defeated the Parkway North Vikings in the home opener on Dec. 12. 

Boys basketball coach Samuel Haug said he thought that it was going to be a very difficult game for the boys, but they played extremely well and came out on top.

“I was pretty sure we were gonna get slaughtered. The other team was a lot bigger than we were and a lot more physical than we were. But our kids scrapped all night and made really good adjustments and when it mattered, we were a lot tougher than they were,” Haug said. 

Senior Quincy Thomas said the opposing team typically scored inside of the key so the Falcons focused on forcing them to pass on the outside.

“Going into the game I knew they were a bigger team and liked to play in the paint, so we tried to stop that. [Offensive] strategies we used were to swing the ball around and not let it stick in one person’s hands,” Thomas said.

Sophomore Oliver Puljic said the team focused on staying controlled around the opposing team’s defense along with stopping them from breaking Summit’s press. 

“[My strategy was] to stop their best player in the post and make sure he didn’t outplay us. [We also wanted] to stop their press break. [A challenge we had was] to not get sped up by their defense; we overcame it by slowing down and controlling the pace,” Puljic said. 

Haug said free throws in the end by seniors Tristan Guest, Roman Gilbert, and Ian Boden contributed to the overall win.

“Realistically [the highlight of the game] was that we hit some really big free throws at the end. Tristan made a couple, Roman made one, Ian made both his down the stretch,” Haug said.

He said he hopes the high turnout for this game will be replicated in future games this season by growing the basketball brand. 

“My goal is to have more nights like this where we pack the house, we get a lot of people to come out and see our brand, see how fun we are, and we continue to keep building [the brand] like our football team has and our soccer team,” Haug said.