WATERBORO — The Wells High School Unified basketball team visited Massabesic Monday afternoon for some good-natured hoops, and Wells took home their first win of the season, 44-32. 

Wells’ Unified head coach Cindy Roche said, “I’m very excited for the kids, because this is their first win. What great progress. This is our third game and it’s unbelieveable to see the understanding of the game of basketball and putting their skills to work during a game. It’s very exciting to see.”

An informal survey of fans agreed with coach Roche on Wells unified progress, many praising the team’s new skills, such as getting arms up for the block.

 Coach Roche shed some light on how her team learns complex basketball skills in the short, one-month season, saying, “each week we look at what they played in the game and a skill that we want to focus on with them. Talking about that and getting practice in prior to the game, so the kids have a clear understanding of what their goal is for that particular game.”

Roche and the Massabesic assistant coach, Katherine Fournier, both praised the partner students. Roche said, “the partners have been phenomenal. Great role models, very encouraging. We have great kids at Wells.” 

Fournier said, “They had some really good atheletes on their team, but it was great all around, it always is.. Our favorite part as a coaching staff, is when the partners on both teams come together to get both teams athletes to score.” 

The sight of happy kids from two communities unifying spontaneously to play around with the ball after the game was a win that didn’t register on the scoreboard.