The Deerfield boys JV basketball team opened our season today against Loomis Chaffee. We started out well, taking the game to them and scoring the first five points. We kept a lead for the first 8 minutes or so but we’re not able to stretch it and as the first half wore on, Loomis began to impose themselves on the game more. They came out fired up in the beginning of the second half and almost finished us off in the first five minutes. But we showed some resilience and rallied to close what had been a ten-point lead back down to four with about four minutes to play. We fought hard but Loomis in the end, was able to hold us off as we were not able to come up with consistent defensive stops. Seniors Gabe Zaccheo and Kiernan Keller were stand out players for us today. Gabe, along with Max Peh, led us in scoring with 10, most coming on slashing drives that not only scored points but gave us confidence to be aggressive. Kiernan led us on the defensive end, picking up right where he left off last year with his tenacious pressure on the ball and overall ferocity. All 11 players put in some good minutes with eight of the 11 scoring for us. If we had done a better job of stopping their top two players who scored over half of their points, we could have taken this game. But credit goes to Loomis who were well-coached, aggressive and well-skilled to hang on and hand us a 53-59 loss. To conclude, we should recognize several things: 1) the fact that only three players on our team , Gabe and Kiernan along with Ford Holmén ,’26, had ever played a JV basketball game for Deerfield JV basketball before today. 2) Ford deserves recognition for his leadership and energy while having to watch from the bench as he recovers from an injury. 3) And there was a whole lot of new out there today wit special shout outs to Xavier Valdez ’25, Xavier Aviles, Brady Read, Max Peh, Eddy Rena, Henry Griffin, James Fealy all class of ’24, and Jeff Wang, Zhexuan Li, and Moises Castillo all class of ’23 for playing in their first games with Deerfield JV basketball, with Max, Henry, Eddy, Jeff, Zhexuan and Moises all having played with the team during last year’s Covid-restricted season. We also happily welcome our managers, Aly Gonzalez ’23 and Mia Calcano ’23 who scored their first game and kept a flawless book! 4) Finally, a big thank you to all the fans who came out and cheered us on. Despite the loss, it was great to play well against a strong opponent and hear the support of classmates, colleagues and family again after such a difficult year last year. Today was an exciting start to what promises to be an exciting season.