Down by one point with five seconds left on the clock, the Hanover Middle School Basketball Gold B-Team entered the court poised to score.
But after the referee failed to call a blatantly obvious foul and the team lost the game, the seventh and eighth grade girls headed to their coaches, two Dartmouth seniors, for solace.
Brian Kurlander '95 and Kieran McNulty '95 have been coaching Hanover's Gold basketball team since last November.
Kurlander said a key element is making sure the young players have a good time.
"We have to keep it fun," said Kurlander. "Keeping them all focused is key though."
"Some players are here just for the fun and other are really interested in getting better, but no matter what, we get everyone to play at least one quarter per game," Kurlander said.
The team practices twice a week for one hour from November to February.
"We stress the basic fundamentals of the game," Kurlander said. "But at the same time we try to get them into the game mentally."
"Overall, you definitely get into the game," Kurlander said.
The Gold team consists of 10 seventh and eighth graders who did not make the A-team at the Frances Richmond Middle School in Hanover.
"About 50 girls try out, and 10 make the A-team while the rest are split up into four B-teams," McNulty said.
The basketball program is organized by the Hanover Recreational Department.
Dartmouth students coaching local teams is quickly becoming a tradition. For the past few years, the Gold team along with the softball team and the soccer team have been coached by College students.
Presently, in addition to Kurlander and McNulty, Steve Zrike '98 is assistant coach of Hanover's sixth grade basketball team, Doug Young '98 and Tim-Allen Bruckner '98 are coaching a boy's basketball team and Danielle Moore '95 is coaching a junior varsity High School Volleyball team.
Last night Hanover's Gold Team played one of Enfield's Indian River's Middle School B-team.
"We beat them twice before, but not tonight," team member Stacy Sefrane said.
"The first half was kind of slow, but we did really well in the third quarter," said Joshelin Singr-Sargent, a seventh-grade team member.
The Gold team trailed after the first half 9-3, but had a veritable offensive explosion in the second half, scoring 14 points but still falling 18-17.
"We're kind of a comeback team," team member Hillary Young said. "But then we sometimes also have the lead by the half and then get creamed."
Even though the team members are young, they do bear at least one similarity to professional teams: after a close loss, they quickly blamed the officials.
"The ref would brush up against me and he'd call a foul," said team member Ruby Ferm. Ferm complained that one of the referees was also the parent of one of India River's team members.
After tonight's game, the Gold team record stands at three wins and five losses. On Feb. 18, the team will play its last games in the regional tournament.
For several members of the Gold team, the tournament will be their last middle school game.
"Can we please win the tournament?" Singr-Sargent asked coach Kurlander after the game.
Even if Coach-K can not mimic his namesake at Duke University and win the post- season tournament, team members still said they enjoyed being coached by Dartmouth students.
"They're all great," Lauren Tsai said about her two coaches.
"Their pretty cool in their own way," Ferm said.
The coaches and players are not the only ones who get involved in the game. Last night's game brought in dozens of parents that anxiously watched their daughters play.
