In a hard-fought basketball game, the Carlmont Scots started off the season with a loss against the Leland Chargers with a final score of 42-27.
“We played against a pretty aggressive team, and this was really our first game, but I think we learned a lot from it,” Richard Stephens, the acting head coach, said.
The first quarter of the game was rough for the Scots, as the Chargers were agile and took an early lead. After an intense back and forth, the quarter ultimately ended 13-6.
“It was our first game and my first high school game,” said freshman JV basketball player Cyan Yee. “I think we did good on everything except for rebounding, which really killed us. Overall it was really fun to actually play and see what other junior varsity teams are like.”
A few timeouts were called early in the game, and it could be heard that Coach Stephens was trying hard to push them.
“We played against a pretty aggressive team, and this was really our first game, so it was a little difficult. But I think we learned a lot from it. A lot of these kids haven’t played in a long time,” said Stephens.
In light of COVID-19, players like Yee had difficulty readjusting after being away from playing games for so long. During the match, Stephens often encouraged players to move to other positions and sometimes stopped to call a timeout altogether.
Stephens himself was only temporarily taking over for head coach Julie Meade. Despite these challenges, both teams did their best and enjoyed the match. The Carlmont Scots chose to learn from their loss.
“I think we started out strong, but we had a hard time with rebounding and securing the ball, as well as predicting their passes and making our shots,” Yee said.
As the match went on, the Chargers quickly pulled ahead and secured their lead through agility and posterity, ending the third quarter 32-17.
“It takes a while to get used to this, playing hard physical basketball, so they’re gonna do better, but it was kind of a slap in the face first game,” Stephens said.
