As the first half ends, Park is far behind Jefferson. Coach Dave Breitenbucher said he needed to make some adjustments going into the second half.

“At half-time, we started pressuring a little bit better than we did in the first half,” Breitenbucher said. “The first half we had good ball pressure, but our wing pressure was a little bit off.”

According to senior and captain Aaron Ellingson, the team fixing strategy going into the second half of the game resulted in success.

“We made the right adjustments for the second half,” Ellingson said. “We ended up executing a lot of things better and it ended up working for us.”

Sophomore Deontez Ross said part of the difficulty at the beginning of the game was the boys’ ability to stay mentally tough against Jefferson.

“One challenge was keeping our focus,” Ross said. “Jefferson plays a very slow game, so when they slow the tempo down its hard to stay focused.”

Breitenbucher said the team’s main goal was to execute well and finish shots in order to be successful.

“We gotta get million dollar shots,” Breitenbucher said. “We gotta get to the basket, get our good shots, and then just be solid with it.”

Ross said the team should not get too confident with this win, but rather keep working hard during practices.

“We just gotta keep grinding in practice, keep preparing,” Ross said. “We got a tough schedule this year, it’s been a rough season we just keep grinding through it, we’re getting there.”

As the next game approaches, Ellingson says the team has to keep a humble mentality and go into the game focused.

“Next game starts zero-zero,” Ellingson said. “Saturday morning against Cooper, we just gotta be ready to go.”

Park boys’ basketball will play against Robbinsdale Armstrong 1 p.m. Jan. 18 at Park.