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“One Last Trip” by Soo Song

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The tournament began not with a jump ball, but with a loud rustling of snack bags early in the morning on the bus. On November 21, the Dalat Varsity Girls and Boys Basketball teams departed for Kuala Lumpur to attend the basketball tournament at the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL). Within less than 20 minutes into the ride, the girls were full of energy, eating nachos with salsa and hummus with vegetables. Soon, we arrived in K.L. in the early afternoon. 

Our first game was against the host team, ISKL. Shoes squeaking, and adrenaline spiking, we secured our first win of the tournament. Then we played against a local club team, Selangor BA, who had won against us in a close game. After the games, we went to a mall for dinner and bought snacks with money that was generously donated to us by an anonymous parent. Not much later, back at the hotel, the girls gathered in one of the rooms to eat the snacks, play games, and talk. Not everyone had arrived, but people had already started eating the snacks. In less than 30 minutes, all the snacks were gone in an instant. Thinking about the game the next day, everyone said goodnight to each other and went to their own rooms to sleep. 

Saturday started off with a tough loss to another local club team, Putrajaya, which put us back into the battle for 3rd place against ISKL once more. With an outstanding defense from Dalat, ISKL only scored 3 points in the entire second half of the game. With the ball inbounded at the end of the game, players on court and on the bench yelled “HOLD THE BALL” as Maya Duro (10) caught the ball and hugged it tightly as the countdown went to zero. We didn’t just secure the bronze medal, but we had defeated ISKL twice in a single tournament, an achievement that hadn’t been seen since 2023. We then watched the boys’ team claim their silver medal against ISKL.

Exhausted but happy, the girls settled at the back of the bus. As the bus pulled back onto campus around 9:45 pm, we could see the familiar faces of parents and bright car lights waiting to go back home. 

Looking back, “the best part was probably beating ISKL twice during the weekend, which after having been on varsity for 3 years, I have never done before till this year,” says senior captain Ee Rynn Ong (12). The true prize wasn’t just the medal, but memories and friendships that will last a life time. 

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