By Hogun Lee
After the Christmas break, YISS Girls’ basketball team faced the Humphreys Blackhawks in their homecoming game that took place in the high school gym, January 14th. Since it was the homecoming game, YISS administration urged the students to wear all-red outfits to demonstrate the school spirit.
This particular conference match between the Guardians and the Blackhawks wasn’t the first encounter between the two teams this season. Both teams had their first game against each other in December 10th, 2014. The result was the victory for the Guardians, with a score of 44-39. However, as many experts comment, sports matches always accompany unexpected anomalies.
When the first quarter of the game began, Blackhawks came out stronger than the Guardians. Guardians could not play at their highest level, which reflected in the scoreboard. The score at the end of the first quarter was 11-8 for the Blackhawks. In the second quarter, Guardians tried to narrow down the score difference with shots from Juhee Kim (12) and Soo Lee (9). The gap narrowed down to one point and the score after the second quarter was 17-16 for the Blackhawks.
After the halftime, Guardians pulled their strings together. In the fourth quarter, which was the highlight of the game for most people, Guardians finally caught up with the Blackhawks and later topped their points. Towards the end of the fourth quarter, Hana Ikeda (11) made a short lay-up from the bottom of the basket to gain the first lead for the Guardians (32-30). Throughout the game, Hana controlled the YISS team’s offense as the point guard and contributed to her team’s defense with five steals throughout the match. After YISS gained the lead, Suzy Kim (11) widened the score difference with her aggressive plays. The final score was 41-35 for the Guardians.
“It was such an intense game,” said Doyoung Choi, a senior who watched the match. “The highlight of the game was when YISS finally took the lead in the fourth quarter!”
When the statistics were gathered at the end of the match, Suzy Kim (11) led the team with 15 points and Juhee Kim (12) with eight. Suzy also led the team with 10 rebounds in total. Finally, Hana Ikeda (11) had five steals.
“I was really satisfied with our performance tonight,” Kyla Swanson (11) said after the match. “We weren’t all that ready in the first half, but in the second half, we were back into the game.”
The girls will now have their DAHS overnight trip to play their eighth and ninth conference match against TCIS and DAHS.
On the same day, Varsity Boys also faced the Blackhawks and beat them 55-47. Xavier Sawyer (11) led the team with 26 points and Daniel Yi (11) with nine. David Kim (10) contributed with 12 rebounds throughout the game and Josh Kim (11) led the defense with three steals. Boys’ team is also looking ahead into their next conference games against TCIS and DAHS.