The 2014-15 season was a success for the boys’ junior varsity basketball team, which finished 6-2.
But players say this season will be more difficult.
So no one was surprised when the first game against Vintage High School on Dec. 1 proved to be a challenge.
With only five players available, the Cavs were defeated, 50-82.
The team has lost the majority of its old players, including juniors Adam Dean, Aidan Cunningham and Emil Erickson and sophomore Miles Edwards.
This leaves the JV with only six players, and they’re all sophomores.
On top of that, sophomore Bryce Longoria, the top scorer last year, couldn’t attend the game because he was sick.
“Bryce is a core member of our team, so I don’t know how we’ll do,” sophomore Jake Longoria said before the game. “Since we’re playing with five people, we have to step up as a team.”
To make matters worse, in the second quarter sophomore Howard Yuan was injured. He had a bad muscle cramp on his leg.
Sophomore Jake Longoria shoots a deep 3-pointer, one of three in the game against Vintage.
So the Cavs had to play with only four players for the rest of the game, which Jake said was very tough.
“I think we just got demoralized,” he said. “We had the mindset that we didn’t have a chance. When we were down, it was really easy for the other team to operate on offense.”
Jake attributed the loss to the team’s low energy and negative mindset.
“One of their players hit like three 3-pointers in a row and five in the first half,” he added. “We got into a really bad mindset about the game.”
Jake led the team with 21 points. Sophomore Reggie Fan followed with 19. Sophomore Steven Wang had six, and sophomore Harkirat Lally and Yuan had two points apiece.
Fan and Jake both saw many strengths and weaknesses throughout the game.
“We were unselfish with the ball, and we moved it around well,” Fan said. “(However), our rebounding wasn’t good.”
Jake agreed with Fan.
“We have good individual talent,” he said. “We are able to create shots on our own. (However), we don’t rebound or box out, mainly because we don’t have height.”
The team lost all its reasonably tall players in Cunningham, Dean and Erickson.
“We don’t play like a unit, and we have bad communication,” Jake said. “It was a struggle on defense.”
The boys’ next game is on Monday, Dec. 7, away against Woodland Christian at 4:30 p.m.
—By Annya Dahmani
