For most humble athletes, we realize that losing is a key part of excelling in your craft and getting better. Without loss, we would never understand what we need to work on or how to improve even further. With that being said, on Monday, the Wildcats lost at home against Bakersfield Christian. The game started off intensely, as the Wildcats went point-for-point with the Eagles until the score was 16-14. After this, however, the Wildcats could not continue to keep up, and the Eagles pulled away. At halftime, the score was 34-19 in favor of our opponents. At the beginning of the third quarter, the Eagles came out with more intensity and played all the way through the fourth quarter. The final score of the game was 52-37 in favor of the Eagles. The Wildcats were then 4-3 in league.

Coming off of a loss is never easy for most sport teams. However, the Wildcats have shown their resiliency all year. The Wildcats played the Wasco Tigers on Tuesday. The Wildcats and Tigers have been competitive since the beginning of league after the Wildcats won in overtime. At the beginning of the game, flashbacks of the previous match-up came early as the ‘Cats and Tigers went point-for-point until the final score of the first quarter was 24-19. However, Taft only scored 8 points in the next quarter, which allowed Wasco to gain more ground and get back into the game against Taft. At halftime, the score between the two teams was 31-22. The third quarter went much of the same as the first and second quarters. The final score of the third quarter was 42-35 in favor of the Wildcats. The fourth quarter, however, was much more intense; Taft lead the game all the way until the final two minutes of the game. Wasco had gained the lead and was ahead by a basket with 30 seconds to go. Taft inbounded the ball on the other side of the court to Senior captain, Zach Tuila, who brought the ball all the way down and scored with just 4 seconds left. Taft ended up winning the game 61-60. The Wildcats were then 5-3 in league.

On Thursday, the Wildcats played the Shafter Generals at home in the Mullen Gym. Shafter and Taft have been known to have a rivalry after Taft won the last conference game in the final four seconds of the game. With this being said, the Generals had a lot of motivation to come out victorious. At the start of the game, no team scored for the first two minutes of the quarter. After that, Taft and Shafter went point-for-point until the final score of the first quarter was 8-11 in favor of Taft. The second quarter was just as intense as the first, as neither team seemed able to pull ahead into a comfortable lead. The final score was 24-24. The third quarter followed much of the same suit as Taft and Shafter battled it out until the score of the third quarter was 37-34 with Shafter in the lead. The fourth quarter did not show any difference as Shafter barely won with a score of 54-53. The Taft Wildcats were 5-4 in league at the end of this game. Despite taking two losses the ‘Cats ended the week in second place overall for league play.