They may not have played up to their coach’s standards, but the Wareham Viking boys basketball team took the first step towards defending its ninth straight conference championship Tuesday night.

Senior forward Andy White scored 13 of his game-high 21 points in the fourth quarter, sophomore forward Jovahn Thomas had 17 points, senior guard Mike Labonte added 15 points, and Coach Kevin Brogioli got the 295th win of his career as the Vikings beat the Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech Bears 68-55 at home in its season opener.

Things didn’t start well for the Vikings (1-0), who trailed a hungry Voc-Tech (0-2) squad by seven points following the first quarter. Wareham turned the ball over repeatedly, and struggled to get into a rhythm on both ends of the floor.

“Maybe it was first game jitters — I’d like to hope it was first game jitters,” said Brogioli of Wareham’s sluggish start.

The Vikings slowly cut into the lead and led 28-27 at the half. They played better basketball for most of the second half, but it still wasn’t enough to impress their coach.

“Poorly — we played pretty poor,” said Brogioli. “We made too many mistakes, we had too many turnovers, and played very uncharacteristic Wareham Viking basketball.”

The Vikings began to pull away from the Bears early in the third quarter, but three straight three pointers by Voc-Tech sophomore guard and leading scorer Jordan Rose-Wheatley (16 points) left Wareham trailing 38-37 with 2:10 to go.

The teams traded buckets until Wareham was able to go on a run of its own, as both senior guard Xavier Foggie and White converted on back-to-back driving layups, giving Wareham a 45-38 lead, and momentum, going into the third quarter.

It was a whole lotta' White and a little bitta' Labonte in the fourth, as six-footer pumped in 13 points, most of which were in the paint, and gritty guard added six points in the quarter.

White all but sealed the deal for the Vikings with 3:58 left as he converted a Rajon Rondo-esque fake behind-the-back pass into a layup that put the team up 10 points.

From there, the Vikings were able to control the pace of the game.

“We settled down in the fourth quarter, got some easy buckets,” said Brogioli. “We're better than we showed earlier in the game.”

Wareham will face Sandwich at home on Thursday, Dec. 18, at 6:30 p.m.