The varsity boys’ basketball game against the Cedar Park Timberwolves featured a heartbreaking loss of 64-57 after a hopeful comeback in the last quarter. Altogether, the perseverance of the team and the energy of the student section fell short of bringing the Warriors a win in their first game of the season.

Towards the end of the fourth quarter, the Warriors miraculously recovered from their persistent setback from throughout the game, spurring excitement among the crowd.

“We were working really hard and it felt good [when we finally caught up] and the hard work paid off,” Patrick Sladek ’19 said.

Unfortunately, this anticipated moment rendered itself useless, as the fourth quarter fouls played out to the Timberwolves’ advantage, allowing them to score easy free throws. Despite any last-minute efforts, the Warriors could not bring themselves to their opponent’s threshold, leaving with a loss.

“Towards the end of the game we were forcing things on the offensive end to get back into it, and once we had that running and we tied it out, we slipped up on defense. We weren’t communicating well,” Corey Levinson ’19 said. “They were executing on their offensive sets and we just couldn’t switch and communicate on the edge. They hit their threes and we dug ourselves into a bigger hole by fouling. Then, they hit their free throws and we unfortunately couldn’t hit our threes as much as we needed, to come back [in the game].”

With fresh experience and feedback, the Warriors hope to take the game as a learning experience to ensure success for the rest of the season.

“We are going to try to increase our offense [because] we have got to make shots – we didn’t make a lot of shots today,” Heston Williams ’19. “We also want to work on our defense and get better defensive sets in to hopefully slow down their offensive sets and not let them catch as much fire as they did today.”

The Warriors will face Cedar Park High School on Tuesday, Nov. 20. Go Wood.