By Rachel Houng
New Hyde Park Gladiators are writing history as this year’s boys varsity basketball team achieved the title of Conference Champions. Playing against a series of different schools, the team worked hard throughout their 12-game season. The varsity basketball team's roster includes players Amal Kayani, Andrew Allen, Arsh Singh, Bevin Biju Mathew, Brandon Thomas, Demetri John, Francesco Mangione, Isaiah Alix, Isaiah Lariosa, Nicholas Rios, Prabsharan Singh, Sam Hodiwalla, Sireen Brown, Vincente Alvarenga and Shane Antao. Team manager, Anthony Williams, and Coach Benjamin Krauz were able to wrap up the conference with great success.
Conferences are where teams are placed according to their skill level, success in prior years, and school enrollment. With so much riding on the conference, the basketball team has expressed their feelings about playing together.
Source by Anna Detke
The stands are full of supporters cheering on the basketball team at their playoff game.
“Our expectation going into every game is to come out 1-0. During the game, I felt really excited because we had a chance at winning the conference, which was a goal of ours since the beginning of the season,” senior Isaiah Lariosa said.
The high stakes and possibility of writing history motivated the basketball game to put in a large amount of effort in hopes of winning.
“The team had the goal set from day one, I think keeping that energy and playing our hearts out led us to the conference championship,” junior Isaiah Alix said.
The team had other motivations that encouraged them to push harder than they had before. With different motivations, they put in a large amount of their efforts into winning.
Sources by Anna Detke The team coaches give the players advice and boost team spirit; Players cheer on their fellow teammates from the bench.
“Our school doesn’t even have a banner for basketball so I guess everyone on the team had a greater drive to win and all the seniors and team worked way too hard to give up then,” junior Bevin Mathew said.
Members of the team feel as though this game was different because of the teamwork that they built. They also feel that the synergy between the team and the captains contributed to the success achieved.
“Our team chemistry was different this year, everyone in the team just played great together. We were also able to trust each other and the captains did a great job keeping everyone together to play great basketball,” senior Arsh Singh said.
Although the season ended with a playoff loss to Garden City, it is evident that the team feels accomplished because of their success.