Humbled Owls Stand Tall in Defeat to Hornets

Emblazoned on the outside of the 15 Passenger Country School activity bus are the words “Carrying School Children.” And from the outside, if you’d been one of the many commuters gridlocked at the intersection between Hamden’s Skiff Street and Whitney Avenue on Thursday afternoon, you would likely have assumed that’s exactly what the bus was doing: transporting students. An audio recording taken from the inside of the bus, however, would have yielded a very different story as the sounds likened more closely to those found in the bowels of a submarine upon which a mob of angry pirates being tortured to death with sledgehammers.

Yes, that’s right. After 30 minutes of peaceful pop-music-rich interstate driving, everything changed as the bus eased onto Skiff Street. What began as a backseat challenge to deliver the best motivational speech quickly escalated into a pre-adolescent shouting match between a few teammates as they sought to out-do one another with their grandiose declarations of smack-talk-laden bravado and domination. If anyone had taken the advice of these youngsters’ boasts, they assuredly would have made their way to their favorite Sportsbook and put the entirety of their life’s savings on the Owls. There was no doubt about it, according to a few overconfident team members they were going to feast on the lowly Hornets and leave them sobbing into their pillows that night.

Words, though–as anyone worth their weight in wisdom will tell you–are cheap, and games of sport are never played on paper. So, while the team was eager to avenge their opening season home loss to the Hornets of Hamden Hall, they were reminded by their coaches of the truth that has become a hallmark conversation for this young team: wins and losses cannot be controlled in isolation. Only effort and attitude are within one’s control.

Nevertheless, as the bus made its way through the mid-afternoon traffic, Coach McDonough recalled thinking about what the season had taught the team. 

“You know,” he acknowledged, “the one thing I kept thinking about as I listened to the pre-game victory speeches was an article I’d read online a few years ago, ‘You can’t Learn Anything From Winning,’ in which the author, Muhkhim Naltus, remarks, ‘Play to win only when you need to fuel your self-esteem. Other than that, winning can't help you much.’ Somehow, I felt the tide of karma hanging in balance there on the bus. I thought of the ways sport can teach us,  of the lessons we needed–not as athletes, but as humans–and of the ways excellence and humility are best sought in tandem.”

After a brief detour to The Beckerman Athletic Complex, the team found their way to Hamden Hall’s main campus at the foot of New Haven’s East Rock where a raucous lower school crowd filled the stands of the school’s classic Hoosier-esque gymnasium. As chants of “LET’S GO HOR-NETS!” rained down on the team’s pregame routine, it was clear the environment was going to be decidedly different from the cozy comforts of DeFrancis Gymnasium.

From the start, there were two elements of the game that were clear. First, the Hamden Hall team was capital-A Aggressive as they employed full court pressure from the outset; and second, the substitution rhythm would be interrupted by timeouts every four minutes for a full-team replacement by the Hornets’ coaching staff. Nevertheless, the first quarter zipped by with a tally of 6-8 in favor of the Hornets. 

In the first frame, Jonah McDonough netted two baskets on drives into the paint, while Henry Laurans deftly rolled toward the hoop to snatch a pass and lob in a basket of his own. Despite TCS finding itself on the short end of the scoreboard, however, the young lineup of Oliver Molloy, Edward Barney, Kyle Jacobson, Andrew Lustberg, and Neil Parwani did an admirable job in holding fast under intense pressure from the speedy Hornet guards. 

In the second quarter, two Hornet brothers teamed up for 7 points, outscoring TCS by 3 with a number of close misses near the hoop by the Owls. Fouled hard on a floater from the right side, McDonough dropped in two free throws, and Kyle Jacobson added a field goal with a 6 footer that caught nothing but nylon. Patrick Becker added significant pressure in the TCS' vehement attempt at a full-court press, but still, with a halftime score of 15-10, Coach McDonough reminded the team that “they beat us by 5 in the first 16 minutes, let’s get them back in the second 16.”

The team took this message to heart by applying pressure of their own. Starter Quinn Crimmins was again a tenacious defender in the backcourt and Oliver Molloy continued to develop his crossover wizardry with two short jumpers from the left wing. Jimmy Ogeneski was able to put in a nifty spinning shot around two defenders to go along with a 1-2 trip to the charity stripe, and Jonah McDonough scored a driving layup and swiped a rebound away from an unsuspecting Hornet guard, missed a contested layup, then chased down the rebound to score another basket and enforce the Owl’s own infusion of energy. In the quarter, the Owls dominated, holding the Hornets to 5 points, taking a 21-20 lead into the final frame. 

In the last quarter, though, the fatigue of fighting against the full court pressure really got to the Owls. Unable to respond and share the load, Hamden Hall put up 11 points, extending a lead from which Country School just couldn’t recover. A 7 minute scoring drought for TCS was finally ended by a deep transition 3 pointer from the halfcourt logo by McDonough, but the damage had been done and the final score of 31-24 secured the win for the home team.

McDonough led all scorers with 13, Molloy had 4, Ogeneski netted 3, while Jacobson and Laurans each scored 2.

Of all the things to be proud of the team during what was their lowest offensive scoring output of the year, in the closing moments, disappointed as they were, the team gathered together to cheer for their opponent, to shake their hands, and–on the walk to the car–collectively acknowledge, “those refs were actually really good.” In a world where young people are oft-scrutinized for emphasizing societal posturing; image-over-substance mindset;  and deflections of responsibility, it was clear that the boys did learn something from the loss. Sure, their pride had been injured a bit, their collective self-confidence may have been cracked momentarily, and they were frustrated…but they learned something important from the loss: win or lose, it feels good to compete, it feels good to battle, and it feels good to get back on the bus with your friends, to watch the fading sun as it sets over the horizon, and to feel lucky that we had the opportunity–through our effort and our attitude– to grow a little taller alongside one another, even in defeat.