The JV girls’ basketball team took on the Vista Ridge Rangers in a tense game on Dec. 7. The Lady Warriors came back much stronger than their previous game on Tuesday, however the eventful game ended in a 41-40 loss.

The first two quarters featured excellent ball movement by Serena Baruah ‘21, but despite this the Lady Warriors entered halftime lagging behind with a score of 16-15 and hoping to turn things around.

Warrior Pride entertained the audience with their dance to a Beyoncé mix at halftime while the players refreshed themselves for their comeback. Rylee Crider ‘21 had many quick rebounds throughout the third quarter along with Megan Luu ‘21, who made strong passes. The Lady Warriors put in tireless effort to even up the score, leaving the crowd tense with a 30-30 tie.

The fourth quarter consisted of quite a few fouls, and the last two minutes of the game were very energetic, with both teams scoring multiple times. Vista Ridge scored their final two pointer in the last 16 seconds, pushing past the Lady Warriors’ score to end the game 41-40.

“We shot well; we rebounded a lot better than we did Tuesday,” Coach Kim Payten said. “We learned a lot. When you lose by one point, it’s even harder than when you lose by 50 points.”

The Lady Warriors applied some very important lessons from their previous game and implemented them against Vista Ridge. There were many instances of good defense throughout the entire game by all of the players.

“It’s heartbreaking but I think we played pretty good based on the team we played,” Megan Luu ‘21 said. “We always looked for the open post and we communicated well. We have to learn how to do things more structured and organized when we play higher teams because I think we underestimated them a little bit.”

Although they fell short at the end, the Lady Warriors have a 7-5 season and are working hard to prepare for the rest of their games.

“Everybody is down about the game,” Dinah Bray ‘21 said. “Some people are angry, but we’ll get them next time. We’ve had a couple rough patches this season with executing things and such, but it’s getting better. Today was one of our best games.”

The JV girls are looking to recover from the loss in their next game on Friday, Dec. 14 against the McNeil Mavericks.