The Old Rochester Regional Bulldogs put up a good fight Tuesday evening, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Wareham Vikings.

Final score: 92-57.

“Honestly, I was extremely impressed just by the effort made tonight,” said Old Rochester Regional coach Steve Carvalho, now in his eighth season with the Bulldogs. “I know they really wanted the win.”

Carvalho took advantage of the team’s most valuable player: six-foot-six senior Max Risch.

Risch is an ideal player for any basketball team because he’s quick and he can shoot, but most importantly—he’s tall.

Carvalho had Risch playing inside where he could rebound and block shots.

And considering Wareham’s impressive (now) 17-0 record this season, blocking shots could only help the Bulldogs get the win.

It seems the only appropriate question to ask Wareham coach Kevin Brogioli is not, “How’s your team playing?” but, “How do you do it?”

“We did give up some easy layups and a lot of three-pointers just on miscommunication,” said Brogioli. “And that shouldn’t happen; we put a stop to that. But I can’t fault the boys, considering the overall outcome of the game.”

“The kids play hard, they practice hard, and they shot well,” explained Brogioli. “Not to mention, Darien Fernandes played another monster game for us.”

Darien Fernandes scored 36 points for the team.

Brogioli said Fernandes has hopes for college and possibly college basketball.

“We talk a lot about what they need to do to get to the next level,” said Brogioli. “It’s hard to go on and play college basketball, but we have a couple of players that might be able to do. Right now, the most important thing is to obtain a good education, get squared away academically and then we’ll take it from there.”

The game got physical near the end of the third quarter when a foul ball resulted in some pushing, shoving and name-calling.

“We talked about the idea of ‘toughness’ before the game,” said Brogioli. “The different energies can quickly turn negative and manifest in different ways – the crowd banging the boards or hitting the floor and even playing good defense. We take the boys out, let them cool down, and remind them what’s important and why we’re here.”