PHOTO PROVIDED BY GAWHS ATHLETICSBY GARY LEE
STAFF WRITER
On Friday, Feb. 7, boys’ basketball suffered a conclusive loss to Rowland HS with a final score of 59-61.
After several face-offs against nearby teams, both the Wildcats and Rowland were set to compete to advance to California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) preliminaries. Thus, the team’s defeat marks the end of the boys’ season.
Despite the loss, head coach Willie Allen is proud of the team’s performance and believes the game produced a fair outcome.
“I am disappointed [with] the Rowland game because it [would have brought] us to CIF, but I thought we played well,” Allen said. “Rowland is a good team and [when] we were down 8 points in the last minute, our boys fought back and went into overtime. It was a good game, but we just came a little short at the end.”
Similarly, point guard Tyler Kam (12) believes the outcome of the game ultimately resulted from the team’s individual performance.
“[In the end,] we gave Rowland a couple of runs that allowed them to take the upper hand,” Kam said. “We had too many little lapses here and there that [eventually] cost us the game.”
Though disappointed in the final outcome, center Jeremiah Susanto (10) is motivated for the team’s seasons to come.
“I feel like we did not work as hard [as we wanted to] because the match [happened] the day after our [loss] to San Dimas,” Susanto said. “In order to improve for the future, I [will] look back on my mistakes to learn from and work harder on them.
In short, Allen is certain for the team’s future.
“It was a great season for us [even though] it did not pan out the way we wanted to. Every year, we would set a goal that we wanted to [achieve] and winning a league title was one of the goals that we had,” Allen said. “We did not obtain that [goal] so that is something we [will] work on in the upcoming years.”
Overall, the Wildcats played their best and unfortunately will not advance to CIF. Make sure to stay tuned and look forward to their success in the next season!