On Thursday, The Montclair High School Boys Basketball Team narrowly defeated rivals Verona High School by a score of 41-39. Montclair started off the game slow as they trailed 13-7 at the end of the first quarter, but they bounced back by outsourcing Verona 10-9 in the second. Montclair’s junior forward Martin Quiros accounted for 6 of the 10 points scored in this quarter, and 3 of these points came from a big and-1 and then the other 3 came from a three ball. Following these two big plays from Quiros, the momentum shifted towards Montclair, and it was a dominant performance from the Mounties for the rest of the game. They outscored Verona by 10 in the third quarter, and Montclair’s offense was more of a cohesive unit in the second half. The ball was spread around and everyone got in on the scoring. Although Montclair was outscored 12-9 by Verona in the fourth quarter, they performed when it mattered the most. Junior Jahi Whitney hit 2 clutch free throws to seal an impressive win for Montclair against a strong Verona team. Although star senior Ben Price had an off-night shooting the ball, he contributed greatly with lockdown on-ball defense, and the scoring that was missing from him in this game was made up for by the supporting cast. With this win, Montclair moves to 2-2 on the year and they will hope to bring this momentum into their game against 0-4 Passaic Tech on Dec. 27th.