Island Shootout: 1 Point

By Bennett McIver

Dalat hosts a basketball tournament every year called Island Shootout where teams from Penang and the capital KL come up to play a small two day tournament. Our biggest rival, ISKL also attended the tournament and played us in the opening game of the tournament. The result of that game would be a Dalat defeat by two points; however this was not the last time we would face this team in the tournament. We then went on to beat Gardens International School by a decent margin before having the rest of the night to rest. 

The next morning, with five of our players taking the SAT, we were scheduled to play two games in their absence. The first game was against POWIIS, another school located in Penang, which we handled, only conceding six points. Unfortunately, a recurring injury of mine flared up after this game and sidelined me for the rest of the tournament. That victory put us in the semi-finals against Garden International. We came into that game with high expectations, having already beat that team the previous day. However, in light of this confidence, we struggled throughout the first half of the game; we had only managed to get an eight point lead going into the second half. It was then that the SAT finished and our players, who had taken the SAT in their jerseys, joined the team and provided some fresh legs. We still struggled until the 4th quarter where we pulled away and secured the win. 

This semi-final victory put us in the finals against ISKL. After an inspirational speech by Mr. Tom Penland, we were ready. The stands were packed out and hype, having just witnessed the Dalat Varsity girls win their tournament. There were high expectations for our game; everyone was hoping Dalat could emerge champions of both the girls tournament and the guys tournament. However, this hope did not come to fruition, as we lost the final game…by one point. 

The last 2 minutes of the game were intense, with scoring going back and forth. In the final possession, SooWei Goh (12) took the ball down the court where he sized up his defender and called for a screen by Luke Ng (12). He drove right and put up a shot, which was rebounded by Noah Kaney (12) who put the ball right back up and got blocked by an ISKL defender. SooWei (12) got possession off this shot and went to drive around a defender but got kneed in the quad and went down. The ball rolled out of his hand and an ISKL defender burned the remaining two seconds by holding the ball. Whether or not SooWei getting kneed should have been called a foul, we will never know, but the final score was 40-41 with Dalat losing in the finals by one point. 

Our team was devastated, and the crowd was quiet. After the defeat, our coach commented, “Good work guys, I think we played hard, sometimes things just don't work out in your favor. We definitely had our chances so keep your heads up because that game could have gone either way. We will see these guys in January, so let's get them then.”

Losing by one point is hard because you were so close. I looked at my teammates who were silently reflecting on the game. I bet there were a lot of “if only I had made that shot” ideas popping into my teammates heads. Regardless of the outcome, it was a great tournament, and I think our team played very well although it shed some light on areas we need to improve in.