The Horizon Honors Varsity girls team played against Sequoia Charter on Thursday the 19th. The lady eagles walked into the game confident and ready to play. From the start the Eagles dominated Sequoia. Within minutes sophomore Emily Rush scored the first points for the girls by making a three-pointer. Not far behind her was junior Emily Purucker, who stripped the ball from a Sequoia player and made a layup.

It was obvious that Sequoia had no ball control and wasn’t prepared to play against such a fierce team. Sequoia fouled our girls about ten times in the first quarter and helped us end the quarter 21-4.

Things didn’t turn around for Sequoia in the second quarter either, when they were missing shots and their offenses were extremely choppy. Senior Bethany Tsai made three layups in the second quarter and was a key factor in getting Horizon a major lead by the last seconds of the quarter. Sequoia gained some points with a couple layups by the end of the half. Varsity still led by over twenty and held a strong lead of 32-8 by halftime.

With Sequoia unable to keep the ball in their hands or make a decent shot, it was clear that the game was in the bag. But that didn’t make the girls play any less hard. Senior Rachel Irons stripped multiple girls of the ball in the third quarter and helped move the ball around to score points. By the time the nine minutes were up the eagles scored 14 more points and, surprisingly, Sequoia scored 15 more, leaving the score at 46-23.

Finally it was all or nothing. Sequoia had possession of the ball, then out of nowhere Irons stole the ball from a player trying to make a shot and threw it across the entire court into Rachel Van Gorp’s hands to make a layup. The crowd was in a frenzy over what an amazing play was just made. Sequoia began fouling the varsity girls left and right and just started handing us the points. With three minutes left in the game and in no rush to make points, freshman Krista Santacruz was put in for Irons and junior Hannah Webster subbed in for Tsai. Calm and collected, the lady eagles kept the ball moving and away from Sequoia, taking home the win by ending the game 57-28.