Swish, Swoosh, Clank!

By Jae Cho

As posters came upon every Dalat social media account, on December 6-7, Dalat hosted a basketball tournament called the Island Shootout. It included a total of four schools, including Dalat International School. The participating teams were Dalat International School, Uplands International School, Stamford American International School, and Youngsters. 

When I checked the schedule for Island Shootout on Friday, we were playing Stamford at 5:00 pm. From what we knew as a team, we knew that this match was not going to be easy for us. We had played a few games before this tournament, and we had dominated every game so far. We were undefeated as a team.

As school finished, I had to get changed, and I headed up to the weight room to stretch and prepare for the game mentally with my teammates. After stretching and talking for a while, it was finally time. We went down as a team and entered the gym as the crowds were roaring. We started warming up by getting into our layup lines. As one minute was left on the warmup clock, our coaches called our team into our bench. After exciting each other up, starting five went onto the court as the crowds were going crazy. 

The first three-quarters of the match was pretty close. We were down by two points by the end of the third quarter. As the fourth quarter started, we went head to head again, and we were going back and forth with each other still. The crowd was going mad. With 1 minute 30 seconds left on the clock, we were down by two points. We played good defense and managed to secure the difference by only two points. When it was our possession on offense, we swung the ball around the perimeter to find an open Aaron Worten (12) who was well known to be a good shooter. As Aaron Worten (12) caught the ball, he shot it from the three-point line with no regrets. The shot was good! The crowd went crazy as we were up by one point when there was only less than a minute left on the clock.

One of our team captains, Aaron Worten (12), said after the game, “In my head, I was going crazy. I thought I missed it, but once it fell through the net and the crowd went crazy, I was hyped. I love the atmosphere when the game is close, and there is a full crowd, it felt amazing being able to play in a great game.” 

With less than a minute to go, we had secured a good defense, and we were still up by one point. However, Stamford American International School seemed like they had a plan in their heads. As Stamford grabbed the rebound off of a missed free throw, they passed it forward to someone who was an outstanding shooter in their team. The player shot a quick three-pointer as our crowd and team prayed for it not to go in. Miraculously, the shot was good, and there was less than a second left for us to make an offensive play. I was in shock as the final buzzer rang, and the game was over. Although we had lost as a team, I felt like we improved a lot as a team going through difficult situations like this.

As Aaron Worten (12) said, “When they hit the shot with .4 seconds left to win the game, I was stunned. However, surprisingly, I wasn't mad or sad, I was pretty cheerful. Even though we lost, we put our hearts on the court, and I couldn't have asked for anything more.”

Our other team captain, Wansuk Kunawaradisai (12), also said after the game, “The teams we played against during the Island Shootout Tournament had a higher standard than most of the local teams we've played earlier in the season. We had some tough losses, but it motivated us to work towards a better version of ourselves. We're excited to correct our mistakes and improve by putting in more hours of practice.”