On December 2, the Sage Creek Bobcat basketball team began their season with a 75-14 away game win against the Pacific Ridge Firebirds. With the team chemistry starting to pick up at the start of the season, the team looked to begin with a win against the Firebirds after beating the team last year towards the end of the season.

As the Bobcats began warming with layup lines, passing, rebounding and shooting jump shots, they began focusing on their game plan and getting in the zone. With a huge Sage Creek student turnout at pacific ridge, it helped get the team pumped up going into a game that they wanted to see perfection as a whole.

Junior Christian Janke mentioned that their “game plan is essentially everything, get rebounds, fastbreak points, find the open man, and make open shots. By doing what we usually do, we will have a good shot at winning this game.”

After Teiyler Scott won the opening tip for the Bobcats, their lights out shooting sparked a huge run in the first quarter. With nice bench production by freshman Jailen Nelson (#10) and Junior Miguel Trujillo (#4), the Bobcats jumped out to a comfortable lead. In the second quarter, senior Xavier Allison began to find the open man and drilled open shots to follow the game plan going in. Also, senior Dakota Miller (#24) came into the game and made two long balls from downtown as the whole stadium erupted with energy going into the second half.

With the Firebirds only scoring 12 points in the first half, the Bobcats did not stop pushing on the gas pedal. The Bobcats had stellar defense throughout the game, however, the third quarter made the team shine with numerous steals. The Bobcats used a press scheme similar to what the San Diego State Aztecs run to cause bad passes for easy points off turnovers. In the fourth quarter, the Sage Creek student section was still rocking as the Bobcats made more three pointers and easy looks to end the game as Bryce Busher raised his hands to the sky at the final whistle.

Senior Bryce Busher mentioned “this game had a big importance to me. It is the first game of the last for me in my senior year. Hopefully we can make a run at CIF to end a great run for my senior year.”