The Losses of This Year’s GOA Girls Varsity Basketball Team

By Eve Askin ‘22 and Hannah Lancman ‘22

    Picture this. You are standing in the world’s most famous arena: Madison Square Garden. The stands are filled to the brim with enthusiastic and eager fans. The indignant roar of passion is beyond the comprehension of your ears. The spirit is unmatched. The sense of belonging to something bigger takes your breath away. 

Now, double that emotion and energy. You suddenly find yourself at a GOA Girls Varsity Basketball game. Nothing compares to the GOA Girls Varsity fans. 
The buildup of fans over the past few years has been leading up to this season. Each year, more and more fans have been drawn to the unique energy and essence of the team. This year was going to be the most vivacious of them all. 
Unfortunately, after a devastating turn of events due to COVID-19, the Girls Varsity Basketball team has lost yet another chance to play in and win the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Championship. COVID-19 has taken away the team’s pride, glory, but most of all, their beloved championship.
“I am sincerely heartbroken at the premature loss of our Girls Basketball championship this year,” junior Hannah Lancman, a forward on the team, said. 
Junior Kaylee Maines has been a loyal fan since enrolling at GOA in 2018. She described herself as “grief-stricken.”
The loss has shaken not only the GOA community but the sports world as well. In fact, Kyrie Irving was planning on visiting Coach Sandy and the team on the condition that he would be able to meet the professional-level student athletes GOA keeps within the walls of the Sandy Pyonin gymnasium. Irving, a huge fan of the GOA basketball program, wanted to observe the athletic excellence of the varsity team as they display poise and professionalism as well as a unique work ethic on the linoleum floor.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, Irving’s visit was postponed and then canceled, in addition to the effort he made to turn the GOA Girls Varsity team into a fully functioning NBA team. Not the WNBA; Irving wants to turn the girls, whom he affectionately calls his own, into a team worth rivaling his own lowly Brooklyn Nets. Barely deserving of the capital letter heeding their name, the “nets” have taken a turn for the worse and have decided to replace their slightly “weaker” players with the more physically able and experienced GOA girls. 
    “2021 was going to be the year,” head coach Aaron Breitman said. “These girls dedicated their entire off-season to basketball. While other teams were relaxing and focusing on their virtual schooling, the GOA girls varsity team was working out and practicing. One mask, two masks, five masks, it didn’t matter to us, we would have played over a Zoom call. I don't think the state could have handled us winning the title this year. In all honesty, I think there should be an investigation launched because they knew we were going to win but they had to figure out a way to stop us.”
Although the athletes, fans and coaches are in absolute devastation and ruins over the loss of the season this year, there is always next year to win another perspective banner on the gym wall!