By ALEX SPONSELLER The Cranston East boys basketball team split its opening two games prior to the holiday break to start its winter season.

The Bolts took home an opening day win by topping East Greenwich 67-48. Naz Milien led the way with 16 points while Connor Chambers scored 15, Juel Goris 12 and Jack Neville 10.

East would fall to La Salle 76-53 in the following game to drop to 1-1. Delwin Montan led the Bolts with 12 points scored while Goris added 10.

After a down 2020 in which it won one game, East is looking to rebound this time around with a veteran group that includes four seniors and nine juniors.

“The four seniors have a lot of varsity experience under their belt, so they’ve been doing a good job of leading us and giving us a steady focus on where we want to go,” said East coach Isaiah McDaniel. “This junior class is very talented, they work hard and compete with each other at practice. With the group of kids we have, they’ve played together for awhile and they remind me of that 2019 group that reached the Final Four.”

Considering the nature of the season and the ongoing pandemic, depth will be key this season as many teams have already been forced to compete shorthanded.

“We’re layered very well and I am lucky to have a group that is very competitive at every position, we run two deep at each spot. Depth is going to be huge this year, whether it is someone going down with COVID or another sickness. There may be games when you have to play with only eight guys, so depth is going to be huge,” McDaniel said.

Although the Bolts entered the break coming off of the La Salle loss, McDaniel has been encouraged in the early going and feels that the mistakes made are fixable.

“We played very well against East Greenwich. We were fast, played good defense, moved the ball well. Against La Salle, everyone tried to do too much instead of focusing on the things that they’re good at. When you face a team like La Salle or Hendricken, that happens sometimes. We’re a work in progress and I think the way we played against East Greenwich will be how we play the rest of the season.”

The Bolts will return next week to face Narragansett and Woonsocket. With a tough Division I slate ahead of them, the Bolts are looking to give every team they face a battle.

“We want to be competitive with everyone we face this year, we don’t want to be on the wrong side of losses by 20 points,” McDaniel said. “We want to have a chance to win every game in the end.”