A great moment for 2011–2012 RMCS Varsity Basketball Team.
Coach Jose Zapata
The season began with an eager and motivated group of students that were excited to show what one more year of experience and improvement can accomplish. Our first games of the season were against Devon Aire and Doral Academy, two great athletic programs within our division. Unfortunately, after experiencing these two hard-fought losses, we very quickly realized that we had a lot of hard work ahead of us. We had a team meeting in which I, as well as some of the team veterans, spoke our opinions about what our team was about, what we were capable of, and what we wanted to truly accomplish this year. We knew we had a special team; we just needed time to develop team chemistry and unity. As our team began playing other teams that were also in their developing stages we managed to win our remaining seven games. It wasn’t until our second to last game, which was played against Somerset Eureka, that our team experienced another incredible challenge. Unfortunately, our team had a 10 point deficit by the end of half time. The boys had enough mental maturity and toughness, to persevere, storm back into the game, and force the game into overtime.
We ended up winning that game during overtime. After this, the boys had a greater amount of confidence and positive momentum pushing them into the playoffs. In the playoffs we played against Archimedean in the 1st round. In the second round we had our long awaited rematch against Doral Academy which was one of the teams that had beat us earlier in the year.
After many “in game” adjustments, and great defensive discipline from our boys, we came out victorious in that game. In the finals we had our rematch against one of our toughest and only overtime games of the year, Somerset Eureka, at Ghould’s Gym. Our boys knew that after playing a hard fought overtime game against them earlier in the season, and having lost by such a small margin, the other team would have incredible motivation to push and play harder against us. Our boys showed incredible discipline, teamwork, and sportsmanship in that final game. They got off to a quick start, they developed a small lead and used great defensive toughness to protect it all game long. In the end we won the ISL Championship Game 37 – 27. Needless to say, this is one of my greatest and proudest moments as a coach ever. I’m very proud of the 2011- 2012 RMCS Varsity Basketball Team.
Members of the Championship Team: Pedro Pages, Cameron Allen, Luigi Leveille, Andres Cesin, Christopher Perez, Ricardo Garcia, Chris Chang, Anthony Dorsett, Daniel Cordero, Luis Gomez, Nicholas Warring
