Senior captains are relied upon to provide significant leadership to their respective teams and Greenwich High School’s boys basketball team certainly received plenty of guidance from Connor Parkes and Jonathan Brennan during Friday night’s season-opening game against Fairfield Prep.

Parkes and Brennan, both senior captains, combined for 34 points, making it a happy season-opener for the host Cardinals and their fans.

A point guard, Parkes scored a game-high 22 points, while Brennan, a guard, added 12 points to power Greenwich past visiting Fairfield Prep, 59-48, in a non-conference varsity game.

Fourteen of Parkes’ points came in the first half, enabling the Cardinals to enter halftime with a 28-23 lead. Brennan scored 10 second-half points, including two 3-pointers.

“The way these guys lead by example in practice and in games – we need that so bad – they are doing a great job,” Greenwich coach Todd Trimmer said of his captains.

The Cardinals, whose roster includes five seniors, five juniors and four sophomores, held a 41-35 advantage and remained in front the majority of their matchup against the Jesuits.

“It’s one of the better wins we’ve had, only because we’re just not ready to play a varsity basketball game yet,” Trimmer said. “We’ve had two weeks of practice, we have four guys on our roster that have not played a varsity minute and we’ve had two injuries that are massive. And we’re going against Fairfield Prep, they have great athletes one through 15. It’s a super good win for us, a great win for us, in our first outing.”

Sophomore guard Sandro Scott contributed eight points, seven of which were scored in the second half for GHS, which played solid man-to-man defense throughout.

“It was a great performance against a rival school, Fairfield Prep,” Brennan said. “We had a lot of younger guys play their first varsity minutes today. But these young guys came out and fought hard and we had Connor come out and erupt tonight with big time shots.”

Parkes totaled six points in the first quarter, then scored eight in the second quarter, swishing two 3-pointers.

“They put a guy on me to face guard me and he was trying to get physical with me, he was trying to get into my head, a lot of those kids were, but I didn’t let them,” Parkes said. “I’m happy my teammates trusted me to handle the ball and run the offense and the game just came to me.”

Friday night’s game before a big gathering at Greenwich High School marked the debut of the 35-second shot clock in CIAC basketball. The Cards didn’t have a shot clock violation.

“It was really awesome and a great experience,” Parkes said of playing with the shot clock. “With the motion offense that we have this year, it can be really successful and I can get my teammates involved.”

“The shot clock definitely plays into our benefit, because we try to get early shots, that’s the way our offense is set up,” Trimmer noted.

For Fairfield Prep (0-1) junior guard William Kane had 14 points with two 3-pointers to pace the offense. Senior guard Jack Stocknoff added eight points for the Jesuits, who finished with a record of 16-5 last season and advanced to the second round of the CIAC Division I Tournament.

Parkes’ 3-pointer from the right side gave the Cardinals a 22-21 lead with 2:32 remaining in the second quarter. After Kane’s basket put Prep up, 23-22, Parkes converted a runner in the lane, giving GHS the lead for good at 24-23 with just over one minute to go in the second quarter.

Junior guard Guy Germain made a layup and Parkes scored just before the buzzer sounded ending the second quarter, putting the Cards on top, 28-23, at halftime.

Greenwich’s motion offense effectively flowed throughout against Fairfield Prep, which mostly played man-to-man defense.

“We had to adjust our offense with the shot clock, because last year when something didn’t work, we would just pull it out and reset,” noted Brennan, who is in his third season on the varsity squad. “It’s a big change, but today, with our big motion offense, we got quality looks and we didn’t have any shot clock violations.”

A 3-pointer by Brennan and a basket off an offensive rebound by junior forward Zach Zazula gave Greenwich leads of 31-25 and 33-27 in the third quarter. Brennan made a layup off a steal, making it 35-27 at the 5:56 mark of the third quarter, then converted a shot with 28 seconds to go in the quarter, putting the home team on top, 41-35.

Trimmer was pleased with the Cardinals’ overall defensive performance.

“To hold that team to 48 points – they have shooters, they’re physical, is impressive,” Trimmer noted. “Every time we made a mistake, we didn’t make two or three more, we kind of righted the ship. We had a defensive team that went in and they got some big stops for us.”

In the fourth quarter, a basket by Parkes and a pair of foul shots by Parkes, extended Greenwich’s advantage to 57-43 with 53 seconds remaining. Sophomore guard Gabe Dunleavy scored four points, junior guard Ryan Brennan, Jonathan’s brother, had four points and senior guard Lucas Marks added three points in the winning effort.

Junior guard Matthew Feeney contributed six points for the Jesuits. Indeed, Greenwich displayed its depth.

“I played 13 guys today and we are so young, we don’t know what we have yet,” Trimmer said. “We don’t know how good we can be.”

Said Jonathan Brennan: “We have a deep bench, so anyone’s number can be called and we just go to it and did our thing – we are all ready to go. We’re so deep and all these guys can play. If we are tired, we can get a quick breather.”

The first quarter featured several lead changes, with Prep ending it with a 16-15 edge. During several quick portions of the game, Greenwich inserted its defensive unit, consisting of Germain, senior guard Alex Gianopolous and junior guard Blake Martin.

“The defensive lineup that came in did a great job of getting stops for us, they are the MVP of this game,” Connor Parkes noted. “They made the most of their opportunity and they did their job.”

Connor Parkes, Jonathan Brennan, Sandro Scott, Ryan Brennan, junior Oliver Suppo, Germain, Martin, sophomore Hector Lopez, Gianopolous and Lucas Marks are the Cards’ guards. Zazula, sophomore Gabe Dunleavy, junior Michael Golden and junior Dylan Botoff are forwards.

“We have a lot scorers on our team too, so if I can get them involved and they can hit their shots, we can have a really great year,” Connor Parkes said.

Up next for the Cardinals is a road game against Bassick on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Greenwich then has a little bit of time off, as their next matchup after that is a home game against FCIAC foe Brien McMahon on Jan. 5 at 7 p.m. That’s followed by a home matchup against non-conference opponent Newtown on Jan. 6.

“We want to get better and be playing our best basketball at the end of February,” Trimmer said. “I’ve told these kids if we’re playing the best we can play at the end of February, we are going to be hard to beat.”

“We don’t have a banner in that gym, we have one for every single sport but basketball, so we want to get it this year,” Connor Parkes added.