The Day Creek Coyotes played the Heritage Intermediate Hawks on Thursday, December 12, with both teams hoping to win the boys’ intermural basketball championship title. However, the Coyotes may have gone into the game a bit overly confident, thinking their team would win again and take home gold.

“I was confident, you know, the championship game. I thought that if we played our hardest, and slowed them down, we could win the game,” said Jacob W., a player for the Day Creek Coyotes.

Day Creek went into the first quarter strong and excited. However, Heritage quickly caught up. By the end of the first quarter, Heritage was up by nine points. Both coaches and fans were yelling at their players to strengthen their defense and score some points. Soon after, Coyote fans began to struggle.

“I thought we could still win, and I had faith. I was confident that we could come back, and we kinda did,” said Jack R. a 7th-grade Coyote

By the end of the first half, the Coyotes were still fighting to stay in the game. However, victory slipped from their grasp, the result of weak passes and a failing defense.

“We just weren’t listening to the coach, and our communication was off,” said Jacob.

When the Coyotes went into the second half, they were trying to keep up, but point after point, Heritage just kept on relentlessly scoring.

“At that point, it was pretty clear that we lost. Heritage was just playing angry. You could tell they were mad from the last game,” said Gavin W. a student here at Day Creek.

As the buzzer rang, a somber response was evident among Day Creek students and families. The players walked back to their coach in defeat. After a moment the thought sank in across all sides of the bleachers that Day Creek had lost their first game, 43-24.