It was the night of the big game. Everyone’s adrenaline was pumping and everyone was excited to win. This was the biggest game of the season and we were not mentally prepared for what was about to hit us. Indian Hills wanted blood. They were determined to beat us after our 10-year streak of beating them. We all believed we would continue the streak, until the tip off began.

There were many fans in the bleachers yelling, “DEFENSE” when we had the ball. When they scored, you could feel the gym shaking from their cheering, you couldn’t even hear yourself think. I was put into the game very excited to play and ready to play defense. I wasn’t going to let them score. I recognized some girls who we played last year on the freshman team, but we had an easy win. It was the end of the first quarter and we thought we had this in the bag. We were leading by 5 points. My coach reassured us that we would win, if we had better defense and we ran our plays.

The second quarter started and my coach didn’t put me in. I was a little mad, but I knew my teammates could handle the pressure. Unfortunately, they didn’t run the plays right, and they were slacking on defense.
“Sam, go in the game,” my coach said to me when we were down 7. I was very excited to be back in the game and I could feel my heart racing as my friends walked into the gym. They have never seen me play before and I didn’t want to mess up or play a bad game in front of them. They had the ball and we were in man defense, and I started to understand some of their plays by now. I saw the point guard looking at my girl and I knew she was going to pass it to her. So, I deflected the pass and stole the ball, and I made a layup. Now we were down 5 points. We needed to step up our defense and get another steal, but they made a basket. Grace inbounded the ball and passed it to me. I tried to pass the pall to our point guard, Dani, but there was a defender in front of her who stole the ball and made a basket. I was very mad at myself because now they were winning by 9 points. We weren’t that far behind and we needed to pick our heads up and focus about running our plays right. Two of our point guards wouldn’t pass the ball when we were on offense, so when they tried to shoot the ball, they missed the basket and it was Indian Hills’ ball. Each shot we took and miss is another chance for them to get an even bigger lead on us. At halftime, we were losing by 15.

Our coach gave us a pep talk about how we need to get our head in the game and we need to focus in order to win this. In all our minds we knew we were going to win because they are our rivals and we have to beat them. Unfortunately, we didn’t come out of the locker room with the best mindset.

At the start of the half, I was in the game and we started to fall apart. Our passes were sloppy, we were getting tired, and we were slacking on defense. They started to get an even bigger lead on us and we couldn’t quite get the lead. The game was getting even more interesting when Hills knew they were so close to the end and they could actually beat us. We were still in denial that we were going to loose. The fans were even louder when the fourth quarter started and we were only down by less than 5 points. We were so close to winning it until we couldn’t make our shots and we got lazy on defense. My coach took me out with 2:00 left on the clock and she put in a freshman, who doesn’t know what she was doing, in the game. I was so mad, but I kept cheering on my teammates because now we were tied with Hills. While I was on the bench cheering on my team, I could not stop thinking about how badly I wanted to go in the game and help my teammates out.

We were tied 35-35. Now it was into overtime. The freshman was still into the game, and I became even more anxious than before. I could feel my heart racing more when the clock kept ticking down. Indian Hills started to pick up their lead again. We knew we couldn’t lose this and we had to act more as team. I finally went in the game, with only 2 minutes left, and unfortunately, there was too big of a lead to win the game. The final buzzer went off and their whole bench ran on the court screaming and jumping. All of the fans were so happy, but we were crushed. We didn’t think that we would loose this game.

We were so upset, but we couldn’t beat ourselves up about losing this one game. Losing this game made me realize that we can only get better and learn from our mistakes. We will lose some games and we will win some. This also reflects on to my life by determination will have a positive outcome. Indian Hills was very determined to win, and they did. If I put my mind to something, I can achieve it. The basketball represents how my life will always go in many different directions, but if I have the right mindset and I can control it, then I can get on the right path. Basketballs are always passed around, like my life, some days I have good days, but others are bad. I should focus more on school and study more, and if I am determined to do well on my test and study for a long time, I will get a good grade. This is a life lesson that I will keep for the rest of my life because if I am determined, I can do anything.