The Cranston East girls basketball team dropped a 48-42 decision to visiting Tiverton on Monday night to fall to 1-7 on the season.

Despite taking an early advantage in the first quarter, the Bolts lost their grip in the second when the Tigers outscored them 17-8 to take the lead before the halftime break. Tiverton would hold off East the remainder of the second half to secure the win.

East captain and leading scorer Mya Jiminez led the way once again with 14 points scored while Jayna Gunderway added 11. It was East’s second straight defeat after beating Mt. Pleasant in its first game back from the holiday break.

“We have a lot of positive things happening, we just haven’t been getting the result in wins. (The Tiverton game) is an indication of that. We lost the second quarter by (nine) points, but we were only down four. We had two starters not playing in the first half and it was not supposed to go the way it went. We were in a good spot and should have won the game. We have a lot of good things happening,” said East coach Phil Goddard.

With such a young roster overall, Goddard hopes to see the rising players gain more confidence in themselves and find the ability to finish moving forward.

“They’re all on about the same playing field, they all have their own styles so it’s about fitting them alongside the upperclassmen. These girls are young and they fear the consequence of making mistakes. I saw a few of our kids, in that fight or flight, fly away from the situation that we were in,” Goddard said. “It was the fear of not being to accomplish what we needed to. Being afraid of attacking the loose ball and running into a teammate, being afraid of attacking the basket and being fouled, not taking a good shot for the team, those kinds of things. Making it all the way to the finish line but being afraid of crossing the line, that’s what we’re trying to break.”

The Bolts returned to action against first-place Moses Brown on Wednesday and will then take on second-place Mount St. Charles on Friday. Although East is still looking to get back into the win column, Goddard has been encouraged with the improvements and wants to see the Bolts stay on course as they prepare to take on two of the division’s elite squads.

“We just want to capitalize on our (opportunities) and keep doing what we’re doing. We have made a lot of progress but unfortunately it hasn’t resulted in wins,” said Goddard.