Men’s basketball narrowly loses to Pleasant Grove in final league game

PHOTO: Junior Jordan Sacramento scores twice during a free throw early in the second quarter of the ‘senior night’ basketball game.

By Genna Olavarri,

BlueDevilHUB.com Editor-In-Chief–

The Davis High varsity men’s basketball team lost their ‘senior night’ game 62-69 to the Pleasant Grove Eagles on Friday Feb. 11. 

Head coach Daniel Gonzalez prioritized playing seniors in their final game of the season. The starting lineup featured five of the team’s graduating players. 

The seniors started strong with Zane Pickus scoring for Davis in the first play of the game. 

The teams went back and forth, often tying each other’s scores. Ultimately, Davis came out on top at the end of the first half with the score at 30-28.

Pleasant Grove regained a five point lead in the third quarter despite several three pointers from Davis players including senior Jackson Isidor.

“My standout player tonight is Jackson Isidor hitting his threes,” senior player Younes Chantit. “That was really big.”

Midway through the final quarter, Pleasant Grove had widened their lead to 50-60. With four minutes left on the clock, the Blue Devils offered a strong offensive attack. 

Davis managed to bring the score to 62-63, minimizing the Eagles’ lead to just one point with a minute and a half left in the fourth quarter.

With strong offensive plays from Pleasant Grove in the final minutes, Davis could not regain a lead. The final score was 62-69, concluding the Devils’ season with a nail-bitingly close loss.

Some of the Davis players were disappointed by the results of the game, but were generally happy with how they played as a team. 

“It sucks to lose my last game, but we fought to the end. It was a good game, I had fun, the crowd was great,” senior point guard Colin Walsh said. “Overall, it’s not a bad game to go out on.”

Gonzalez was also proud of how his team played.

“It’s not about just the win. It’s about the effort that we put in,” Gonzalez said. “I thought the attitudes were right, the efforts were right and it could’ve been anyone’s game.”

Gonzalez is hopeful about future seasons, especially given the strong showings from junior Noah Salmon, junior Will Ackerman and sophomore Aidan Crawford.

“We’re certainly going to have some changes next year because we’re losing a lot of key players, but there’s some good ones coming up,” Gonzalez said. 

The senior night ceremony was held before the game. Each of the eight senior player’s names were called, they received flowers and stood with their families and fellow graduating players for photos.

The half-time show included a performance by the DHS Dance Team as well as a balloon popping relay from student government. 

Many DHS students attended the ‘White-Out’ themed game. All of the tickets for the game were sold out prior to the game. 

Throughout the season, basketball tickets were limited due to COVID-19 restrictions. “Our fans are great and it’s unfortunate that we’ve had to have limited attendance,” Gonzalez said. “That’s always been a big plus to help our guys play hard… they really feed off that energy and I think that was part of the reason they were excited to play tonight.”