The Homestead boys basketball team fell short of winning the Holiday Tournament this past Friday and Saturday. The team played on Friday against the New Berlin West Vikings and the Muskego Warriors on Saturday.

The team showed a strong performance Friday night as it beat New Berlin West 64-36. Jaylen Key, senior, led the way with 21 points followed by Josh Mueller, junior, with 11 points and Jacob Urban, junior with 8 points.

A bonus to the win, everyone on the team played in the game and helped contribute to the victory. “In the first game, we all played well together and shot the ball very well too. Everyone got some playing time and helped our team to victory against New Berlin West,” Urban stated.

On the opposite side of the ball, Homestead held Mindika Wijenayake of New Berlin West, senior, to 11 points. The whole team played lockdown defense holding the remainder of the team to under five points the rest of the night.

On Saturday night, the team suffered a loss to Muskego for the tournament championship 71-55. It was the second time these two teams have faced off this season and the second time Homestead has left empty handed. “We got tired on defense and could not keep it going,” Justen Newby, junior, stated about the loss.

“Outside of the first quarter, we played very slow, sloppy, and a lot of one-on-one basketball. It’s what happened to us the first time we played them. It’s frustrating losing to the same team twice, especially when we are the better team,” Urban stated.

Leading all scorers for Homestead, Jack Popp, junior, dropped 14 points followed by Key with 12 points and Mueller with 11 points. Unlike Friday nights game, the defense allowed four Muskego players to score in the double digits, including two players with at least twenty points.

The team now finds itself on a short break which allows time to get healthy and get some practice in before it takes on Milwaukee Lutheran next Wednesday and Germantown next Friday, the latter being a pivotal conference matchup.