The teams ran from side to side, passing and throwing the ball to their teammates and out of bounds, saved, and then threw it to the hoop and scored!

Thursday, November 30th, 2023, the Junior Varsity Lions played Liberty High School at basketball with lots of passes, rebounds, and scores, leading to an entertaining game. The game was filled with loud cheers and anticipation from the crowd, cheerleaders, and coaches.

When asked what the team did to prepare, Hudson Hernandez, eighth grade, said, “We practice a lot to learn to gel as a team so that we could use that on the court. It helped us not to be nervous because we already learned to work together.”

The game was competitive and lively, with great throws, passes, and scores. The first basket was made by Luca Fix, eighth grade, after Seth Gordon, 11th grade, saved the ball from out of bounds. 

“The experience of the game was good; I was nervous until we got into the excitement of the game, and I felt very into the game. The game was very competitive and got very high energy for the players, crowd, and cheerleaders towards the end of the game.” said, cheerleader Chloe Romaniello, 11th grade.

Then later in the second quarter, the Lions almost lost the ball when Liberty knocked it out of bounds, but Colton Tiansay, eighth grade, saved it to make the basket. Halftime was called, and the score was 29 for the Lions and 10 for Liberty. 

“We worked hard as a team in practice and it paid off,” said Braeden Francis, ninth grade.

Leading the team with the most points were Colton Tiansay, eighth grade, with 14 points, and Braeden Francis, ninth grade, with 15 points. When asked what would help them maintain this win, Colton said, “We need to keep practicing and maybe run the clock more when we have the ball near the end to keep the other team from coming back.”

By the last quarter, the crowd on both sides and the Lions’ cheerleaders were screaming for rebounds and scores to finish the game strong. Hudson Hernandez, 8th grade, and Seth Gordon, 11th grade, answered that call by making 3-pointers in the last quarter, with Seth’s final two being in the final two minutes of the game. The game concluded with a score of 66 for the Lions and 23 for Liberty.