The Matadors vs. The Moors, San Gabriel High School’s Senior Night

On Feb. 3, the boys basketball team faced off against the Alhambra Moors in their senior night. To support the Matadors, Band, Choreo, Cheer, and Drill kept their spirit throughout the game.

The Moors started off aggressive, and by the end of the first quarter, they were up by one point.  During the second quarter, the Matadors were pushing strong; yet, by halftime, the score was 21 for the Matadors and 29 for the Moors.

The game was rough and rowdy after halftime, with many of the players falling to the ground, bumping into each other, ending up with visibles bruises on the knees of the players.  Dismally, the Matadors were struggling by the third quarter. Throughout the game, spectators were constantly yelling at the Matadors to get the ball back.

Nearing the middle of the game, a Matador basketball player was struck to the ground, resulting in what seemed to be a cut on the lip. Both the player and the referee checked for blood, luckily none was visible. After around somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes, the Matador player came back to the game after healing from the injury.

In spite of not doing their best, the Matadors were very skilled when it came to executing free throws. By the end of the third quarter, the Moors were up by 14 points. The play’s competition was immense in the fourth quarter; one could see the tension between the two teams as clear as day. The ball went back to back, but in the end, the Matadors lost the game by 15 points. The final score was 52-37.

“We improved our game everyday, they are all hoopers who love basketball like myself, we might have lost but we stayed together all year and played our hearts out until the end,” Andrew Lugo, Shooting Guard said.

 “We should’ve performed much better. We put so much time into the sport all year round. We have great coaches and all of the equipment/resources we need to succeed,” Henry Sy, Forward said.

  “I think we could have done a lot better. We didn’t play to our full potential. It wasn’t the result that we wanted, but at the end of the day we were happy to celebrate our seniors,” Ryan Huynh, Shooting Guard said.