Park opened its season on Dec. 3 unchallenged against Roseville, winning 63-36. However, the Orioles fell short in their home opener, losing to Park Center by 14 points.

Head coach David Breitenbucher said he feels the team played at a similar level between both games, however the outcomes of the games were due to their competition.

“I don’t know how much different we were from one game to the other. It was kind of on the other side,” Breitenbucher said.

Senior captain Ryan Domres said he witnessed a strong defense in both games, however, he felt the offense failed to ignite on the court against the Park Center Pirates.

“I don’t really think anything changed between both games. It just really wasn’t our night on Tuesday. I feel like we had very solid defensive games on both Saturday and Tuesday, but our offense just wasn’t in Tuesday’s loss,” Domres said.

According to Breitenbucher, the first couple games can be rough. But said he looks toward success by the end of the season.

“We’re doing fine, it’s early so there’s going to be more turnovers. I mean our offense isn’t quite together yet, so there’s a lot of mistakes that have to be corrected, but that will come with time,” Breitenbucher said.

Breitenbucher said the key to the team’s success will be teamwork.

“We are always preaching defense and that’s going to take us the furthest this year, so we just have to keep getting better every day in practice and keep building upon trusting each other,” Breitenbucher said.

Breitenbucher said he has faith in the team heading into the rest of the season.

“I have no doubt that by the end of the year, we’re going to be playing pretty good basketball,” Breitenbucher said.

Park plays East Ridge at 7:00 p.m. on Dec. 13 at Park in the old gym.