On January 20th, the Jesuit Rangers basketball team took on Sunset. Heading into the game with a 13-7 record, Jesuit dominated the Bison, with a blowout 79-28 victory.
Jesuit held Sunset to an abysmal 20% shooting from the field and destroyed Sunset on the glass, racking up 43 rebounds in total for the night. In addition, everyone on the team got made an impact in the game as only two players failed to score a basket. These players contributed in other ways such as with assists and rebounds. After suffering a surprising 13 point loss to Sunset last year, Coach Hill was pleased with how his team “played hard and didn’t look past Sunset” like they did the previous season, focusing on the game at hand instead of looking further on down the road to their next game against Skyline, a more talented opponent.
Jesuit faced off against Skyline on January 23rd and came up a bit short of mounting a tremendous comeback, losing 55-60. Trailing by 10 entering the fourth, Coach Hill thought that the team “didn’t play well for the first three quarters” and that they “tried to make a run in the fourth, but [their] slow start was too much to overcome.”
A major problem in this game for the Rangers was turnovers as they coughed up the ball 20 times, as Coach Hill put it, “throwing the ball all over the gym.” Even though they lost, Coach Hill was optimistic and thought “the game was a good wake up call”, serving as a reminder that “they can’t let their level of play sink depending on their opponent.” Jesuit has a rematch with Skyline February 17th and Coach Hill hopes to “limit their turnovers and take better care of the ball” so that they come out on top this time around.
Despite the tough loss to Skyline, standout senior Hank “Goolsby” Shotland stated “this game was a big learning experience for our team. Even though we lost, we were able to have a big come back and learned how to deal with adversity.”
Following their loss, Jesuit bounced back and beat a surging Irving team 47-39 on January 27th. During the game, Jesuit had trouble scoring, shooting less than 40% from the field. Jesuit’s shooting woes kept the game close as they were only leading by 4 heading into the final quarter.
Rusty Landon ’16 following the game stated that the defense “really kept us in the game.” Landon followed up with “this was one of our better defensive games and we were happy with a victory.”
Because they effectively shut down Irving on defense however, Jesuit was able to score enough points to get out of the game with a win. Coach Hill echoed this point saying that “they had great game defensively, but were out of sync of offense”, which made the game a lot closer than it should have been.
For their next game, Jesuit travels to play MacArthur on Friday, February 6th in a tough road test, looking to avenge their 19 point loss to MacArthur earlier on this year. Come out and cheer on the Jesuit Basketball Team!
