All of us were nervous sitting in a musty old locker room. In February of 2018 at 11 in the morning in the middle of an old high school. We were in the locker room jamming to music before the game, and we wore our silky white home jerseys. My team did not lose a single game in those jerseys the whole season. We played Holgate in the GMC freshman basketball tournament championship game. My squad battled Holgate earlier in the season and crushed them. This time they were bringing down their varsity freshman players, but we are not. I thought to myself while sitting in the locker room,  ‘ Their varsity players play well and might cause problems for us,’ but I was not worried. 

The team I played for was the same team I have played with since fifth grade, and our star player was playing on varsity, not with us. I was just recovering from a concussion and probably should not have been playing, but I was playing. This was the most important game of our season. We filed out of the locker room after Coach P told us, “Let’s get stops and buckets.” 

The aroma of burgers filled that hallway, and music blared. That was the most people we have ever had at one of our games. Music played through the gym when we started warmups. I was very nervous, and my stomach seemed to be turning. It felt like I had just exited an elevator. I just wanted to get playing. Our team was the most focused we have ever been during warmups. Then Holgate came out wearing their white uniforms, too, so they had to go back in and change into their purple. We were ranked the number one seed; therefore, we were always in white. The game was just about to start, and I lined up for the jump ball. As the fans were all going crazy, it was a sea of bouncing blue and gold, the song “Jump Around” was playing and, everyone was jumping and yelling. I heard my mom hollar, as she does before every game, “Let’s go, Evan.” 

My brother won the jump ball and tipped it to another Pilot player. He hurled it to me in a fast break. The rusty orange ball zipped at me like a missle, and I caught it. I made a layup to score the first two points of the game. I was fouled. I was fouled, and it should have been called an and-one. I annoyingly yelled in the kid’s face who was guarding, “Ayyy, give me that and-one.” 

We continued to go back and forth, scoring on each other. The game was close for the majority of the first half. Right before the halftime buzzer, I caught the ball from Ryan off of a rebound, and I dribbled it to half court and looked to throw it to Lukas. As I was throwing the ball to Lukas, I saw a big purple blur coming at me.  I was drilled by one of the Holgate players. When he launched me backwards, he pushed me down onto the hardwood floor, but nothing was called. My grandma screamed in terror, “Call the foul!”

 I hit the ground so hard it shook. He hit me like a gust of wind from a hurricane. However, the ball made it to Lukas. He made a half court shot that gave us momentum going to half time break. When we came back out for the third quarter, we were playing very well. We started to pull away, and as time was winding down in the fourth quartering we were already starting to celebrate. I started to get excited like the Cleveland Cavaliers when they had the first pick in the 2011 draft. Buzz, the buzzer rang, and we went crazy. Then they brought out the bright blue ladder for us to climb up to the net. I cut off my piece of the frailing net and turned around and yelled, “We did it, boys!” 

The locker room was fun after. We jumped around and celebrated. We partied for an hour before we went home. On the way home, we were escorted by a fire truck, and we were met by the community and friends at the school. We won the freshman GMC boys basketball title.