Hanks basketball court (archive photo by Cori Alvarado).

The feeling of anger slowly seethed from the fans watching the varsity boys basketball team manhandle the Americas Trailblazers only to give them the game in the fourth quarter.  On Tues Dec. 6, The varsity boys’ basketball team lost to the Americas Trail Blazers 58-52 after leading by as many as 12 points late in the third quarter.  This was one of the Knight’s biggest game of the season because they were facing the number one team in the city.

The stands were full of the home team side.  Almost everyone wanted to come witness and support.

“We wanted everyone to come support us and fill the stands and cheer for us to give us motivation so that we could push ourselves to win,” said senior Joseph Villa.  ”The fans did a great job of cheering us on.  I just wish we could have won this game.”

The boys will now play Socorro High School on Tuesday, Dec. 12.  Game time 7:05 p.m.

The Knights fought the entire first half trying to get enough points to have a good lead and it paid off.  By halftime the Knights were up by ten points but they knew that wasn’t going to be a enough to win the entire game.

After halftime, the Knights came out determined to keep the lead and win the game. A couple of costly turnovers in the fourth quarter allowed Americas to make its comeback. This action disappointed many of the fans as their expressions and chants for the team changed within a matter of seconds.

“We had em,” junior Josh Velasquez said.  ”We made too many turnovers and got comfortable with the lead.  We know we have the talent to be the best in the city.  We just need to close out better.”

The last two minutes of the game the points were bouncing back and forth. The Trailblazers would be up by two.  Then the Knights would come back with a three pointer to be ahead by one.  However, that wasn’t enough to help the Knights win the game. As the Trailblazers worked hard to catch up, their work paid off due to the fact that they had taken over the game in the last 45 seconds by scoring point after point and taking the ball away from the Knights.

“We gave that game away, we gave Americas a win that they didn’t deserve,” said senior Jimmy Alvarado, ” We also had way too many turnovers at the end of the game.”

The Knight fans knew the Knights were down so they started cheering “Hanks What?! Hanks Knights!”  Then Americas fans took it as a challenge and started yelling back “Who’s your daddy?!” This created tension between both sides and the players.