A Great Start But a Devastating End Dakota Ridge's offense scores on the lay up. - Cody Rosenthal Advertising Sunday, February 26, 2012 By Cody Rosenthal The Eagles took on the Rocky Mountain Lobos in the first round of playoffs at Dakota Ridge. Despite the fact that Rocky Mountain was favored to win by 12 points over Dakota Ridge, the Eagles were ready to preform. In light of the playoffs, each Eagle received a mohawk haircut prior to the playoffs and the Dakota Ridge crowd was pumped for a great game, staying loud throughout the entire game.   Both teams played with a high level of intensity to start the game off, but the Eagles were able to pull away towards the end of the first quarter, with a lead of 21-15.   Dakota Ridge continued to play well in the first half. While Rocky Mountain was not playing as sharp in the second quarter, allowing the Eagles to lead 39-31 at halftime. Cooper Gunther(10) said, “It was a good game and it was great that the Eagles pulled out the win.” Rocky Mountain really stepped their game up when they came out after halftime, causing Dakota Ridge’s lead to be significantly cut. It was 51-47 at the end of third quarter, the closest the score had been since the start of the game. The fourth quarter was very close as both teams were sharing baskets. In the final four minutes the lead switched on multiple occasions, but the Eagles pulled away with the victory. The final score was 67 to 62. Abdullah Muslleh, senior guard said, “The key to our success is teamwork, and we played very unselfish and as we like to say, we out teamed them.” For their second round of the playoffs the Eagle's proved their hardwork although they did not come out on top, which ended their playoff round. Dakota played Chaparral last Friday and suffered a heart breaking loss of 60 to 58. Dakota Wallin, a senior forward, said, after the loss to Chaparral, “I think we played our hearts out and left everything we had out on the court. I couldn't be more proud of my team, we played hard until the very last shot, but it didn't go our way.” The Eagle's showed up to play and truly were the better team out on the court. They were putting baskets away, completing passes, and working together as a team. Their strong plays gave them the upper hand for the entire first half of the game giving them a substantial lead over Chaparral. Throughout the entire game, the students, along with the parents were going crazy and the atmoshpere was filled with excitment and anxiety coming from both sides of the fans. And after half time, it just got more intense. Chaparral came out hard after half time and were able to catch up to the Eagles. The score was only a couple points apart for the start of the fourth quater and the pressure was on. Both teams played until the end and gave it their all. Down to only a couple of seconds, Chaparral shot a three pointer which was unsuccessful, but they got the rebound back up and shot just in time for the buzzer to go off, leaving Dakota with a devastating loss.  The players and fans were stunned, but all agreed on one thing: Dakota worked hard and, although they were not successful, they came together as a team and played a great last game.

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