On Friday January 12, the Highland Girls Basketball team played in the biggest rivalry game of the season: Freak East. There were high hopes for this game to be the one to give the girls a win but after a great first half and a second half that could have been better, they lost 37-50.

They started out looking strong, responding well to the points East scored on the opposite side. The Rams followed closely until they eventually overtook East. In this first quarter, they were making strong offensive plays and grabbing rebounds on the defensive end. Because of this with around four minutes left they were leading 11-8. However, East came back a little bit stronger and the first quarter ended with East in the lead but Highland not far behind, 13-15.

The momentum that East gained at the end of the first greatly helped them in the second quarter. They became more offensive, and the Rams were not able to respond as easily as before. They had an occasional bucket but most of the points in the second came from free throws.

East’s defense also became stronger and prevented the Rams from scoring as often. Because of this the Leopards continued to gain momentum and started to push past the Rams. In this quarter East outscored Highland 19 to 8. But even with a few good points from Highland, the first half ended with East having a lead of 13 and a score of 21-32.

In the second half Highland had a hard time finishing and struggled with turnovers. East continued to push with their offensive plays that Highland struggled to keep up with.

This quarter was closer scoring wise with the Leopards scoring 7 and the Rams weren’t far behind with 6 points. This was enough to keep them close but with the added struggle of turnovers, they couldn’t overtake East.

Most of the points scored in this quarter came from free throws, from both teams, which is why the quarter’s scoring was so low. Because the Rams’ best effort in the third, they stayed relatively close to East, and the quarter ended 27-41.

The fourth quarter was a great run attempt for the Rams. They played more offensively and gave East a little pushback. They picked up the energy and attempted to score on every possession. For the most part, this worked but East just kept matching them.

The Rams had a great attempt in this quarter and scored more points than their opponents. But because of the previous points that East had added up, Highland was unable to score enough to keep up. This ended the game 38-50.

“We didn’t do great on defense because we could have done more talking,” senior Quinn Earl said. “On offense we could have read people better.”

A star player in this game was Danae Asiata. She scored 20 of Highlands points, had 5 rebounds and a steal. Asiata greatly aided the Rams in this game. But overall, basketball is a team effort. The team will continue to work in practice and hope to get a win soon.

“In practice we’re just going to keep working, working on plays and trying different things that play to everyone’s strengths,” Earl said.