To start off Judge basketball’s senior night on February 2nd, the Sophomore Bulldogs faced off against the American Heritage Patriots in a region game battle. Led by Coach Jake Bero, the Freshman and Sophomore players’ job was to get a win and set the tone for the JV and Varsity games later on. American Heritage started strong in the first quarter with lot’s of transition buckets, attacking the Bulldogs before they could set up a defense. When listening in on a timeout in the second quarter, coach Bero emphasizes to the team, “Offense isn’t our problem it’s our defense.” Telling his team that stops on the defensive end would lead to buckets for their offense. The second quarter was again controlled by the Patriots, with Judge making runs, but the Patriots holding a lead going into the halftime break. Coach Bero brings his team into the locker room and relays similar messages. He continues to stress the Bulldog’s lack of defensive effort as their main problem, but does not panic as he knows there is plenty of time left in the game. Coming out of halftime the Bulldog’s looked like a different team playing with lot’s of energy and making plays on both sides of the ball. Going into the fourth quarter the game was very close with American Heritage maintaining a small lead. With around 2 minutes left to go in the game the Bulldog’s knew they had to make their run. With the help of some huge buckets from Sophomore John Anderson and Freshman Anthony Chavez the Bulldog’s grabbed the lead with a minute to go. Coming out of a timeout American Heritage forced a turnover on the Judge and scored at the other end. Judge would have their chances to find a winning bucket but were unsuccessful and would lose the game 58-59 to American Heritage. Despite the loss the Bulldog’s played hard and set up both a JV and Varsity win later that night.