The Battle of Harker Hall
After much anticipation, the Battle of Harker Hall arrived on the evening of Thursday, December 3rd. The two teams facing off were the Young Bloods (students) vs the Old Farts (teachers) in a game for the ages. After multiple heart-breaking losses to the staff, the students were determined to retain the championship.
The game started off with intense back and forth basketball – with both sides matching shots and the score staying very even. The staff relied heavily on their star players: Mr Proznick, Mr Gaffney and Dr Matthew’s son Liam,to put the points on the board. Meanwhile the students rotated through their whole line up, with everyone stepping up and making plays.
The first half was very high scoring and ended with the score being 30-26 for the staff. It was still anyone’s game going into the second half.
At half time the boarders put on an entertaining show with multiple challenging games being played by members of each house. The half time show also included the first ever Harker Hall Dunk Competition. A hoop was lowered to 6 feet tall so students would be able to show off their flashiest dunks to the crowd. Multiple students entered the competition and after a first round of dunk attempts, the crowd voted for their top 3 contestants that would move on to the finals of the competition. The finalists were Leon Zhou, Anson Sik and Rio Akiyama.
Anson was up first and didn’t do too well as he lost control of the ball on his way to the hoop and came up short dunking the ball. Rio was up next and as he ran towards the basket he did a cartwheel and proceeded to slam down for a great dunk that the crowd enjoyed. Leon was the final contestant to go and had to pull off something great if he planned on beating Rio’s attempt. As he came up to attempt his dunk, the ball slipped from his grip. He recovered a bit too late – gaining control again too far under the basket causing him to fail his dunk. That made Rio the champion of the first ever Harker Hall Dunk Competition that is expected to happen again at next years event. Will Rio be able to defend his title next year as the Dunk Competition champion?
The pace slowed down in the second half as fatigue started to set in. Both teams leaned on their star players to carry the team to victory.
With a few minutes to go in the one possession game, Marek Ormerod – the best player for the students – went down hard on his way to the basket and battled a severe cramp. This injury sidelined him for the rest of the game and made the Young Bloods look to others in the lineup to step up and replace Marek.
In the final minute of the 2nd half, with the Young Bloods down by 5 points, Chris Kwon came up the floor and popped a clutch 3-pointer to make it a 2 point game. Mr Proznick carried the ball up the court for the Old Farts as the clock started to wind down. The Old Farts used up the shot clock and got a shot away right before a shot clock violation was called. The shot missed and the Young Bloods got the rebound. This was their chance to finally win the Battle of Harker Hall after years of coming up short. The ball was passed up the floor to David Yang who was defended well by the Old Farts. They ended up turning the ball over, sealing the win.
It was a crushing defeat for the Young Bloods, who battled hard and came up short, but lost to a final score of 41-39. It was an entertaining night nonetheless with lots of action and competitiveness. The Young Bloods hope to learn from this defeat and come back stronger next year while the Old Farts hope to continue their win streak at next year’s Battle of Harker Hall.
Dylan Enright is currently a Grade 11 boarding student at St. Georges School in Vancouver, B.C. He was born and raised in Hong Kong until he was 14 years...
