The boys varsity basketball team competed against their home-town-rival, the Jesuit Tigers,  this past Friday, Jan. 27, at 8 pm. While the scoreboard was leaning towards the Tigers midway at the start of the fourth quarter, the Plant Panthers pulled out a comeback win with a final score of 51-48.

“I had high expectations for the game because I knew there was lots of hype around the rivalry between Plant and Jesuit,” Senior Shane Schuster said. “I expected it to be a dog fight until the very end, and thankfully it was us who came out on top.”

Finding themselves being down by ten points near the end, the Panthers managed to keep the Tigers from scoring more than two points in the last three minutes. 

“The environment and the energy the crowd brought really kept us locked in and concentrated and made it hard for Jesuit to focus as well,” Junior Dillon Costello said. “We just kept believing in ourselves and really let the crowd’s energy motivate us.”

Costello was the game’s leading scorer with 17 points, and he acquired ten rebounds, two steals, and one block as well. 

“We had a lot of energy going into the game, so we just expected a battle from buzzer to buzzer,” Costello said. “We just focused on the details and playing our game our way and let the rest take care of itself.” 

Schuster contributed ten points for his team and made many plays on both sides of the ball. With this being his last year playing high school ball with his boys, defeating his home-town-rival for the second year in a row is just one more step in Schuster’s legacy with Plant Basketball.

“The atmosphere inside the Plant gymnasium was unmatched and definitely helped fuel us to victory,” Schuster said. “My last words to Panther Nation is to stay in the present moment, and it’ll all work out in the end.”