The Lions fell two points short in their season-opener against the Sandy Spring Friends School Wildebeests. The team’s hopes fell as junior point guard and captain Dani Offer’s desperation heave fell into senior center Matthew Landy’s hands, ending the game at 56-54 in favor of the Wildebeests. Following the Lions’ victory over the Wildebeests in the PVAC championship last season, the Lions’ felt pressured to finish what they started.

“There definitely is a rivalry that has developed over the past two seasons between us and Sandy Spring,” junior shooting guard, and leading scorer with 17 points, Zev Katz said. “The games are always close and intense so I’d say there was definitely more pressure for this game than others.”

The loss of nine seniors left the Lions and Katz, one of three returning varsity players, nervous for the game, as the brand new team is still building team chemistry.

“I was already pretty comfortable playing with the majority of my teammates because of our tournament in Memphis recently,” Katz said. “That being said I was still a little nervous just because this year’s team plays very differently from last year’s team.”

As the teams entered, JDS had an intense excitement but it was lesser to SSFS more energetic entrance which followed them throughout their warmups. The Wildebeests had more fans at the game than the couple dozens of JDS students and families.

The first point of the game went to SSFS with a layup. The many SSFS fans at the JDS home game went wild. JDS soon tied 4-4 with a pair of layups from senior center Liron Bitton and Offer.

The Lions on the bench kept their energy strong as they chanted “defense” every time SSFS had the ball.

For much of the game, the Lions and Wildebeests were neck-and-neck. Despite strong defense from the Lions, the Wildebeests secured a lead by halftime, the score being 22-27.

Two minutes into the third quarter SSFS extended their lead to eight points, which left the Lions struggling to regain momentum.
Katz kicked off the fourth quarter with a layup as the Lions on the bench began to gain back their energy.

“The fourth quarter was exciting and fun and I knew my teammates would fight with me until there was no time left on the clock,” Katz said.

Following two three-pointers from Offer, the Lions narrowed the lead and were back in the game down only five.
With 49.6 seconds left, Katz sank a three-point shot; the score was now 50-45. As both teams reached the double bonus, free throws left the score 53-48 in favor of the visitors with 26 seconds left.

With fewer than 20 seconds remaining, Offer made a three-pointer making the score 55-51, followed by three Lions free throws and one Wildebeest foul shot. That left the game up to a desperation heave from Offer, who finished with 16 points.

The Lion’s will look to gain their first win of the seasons against the Panthers Thursday Nov. 27 at St.Anselm’s Abbey School at 6:15 p.m.