In a tough match where both teams fought until the very end, the American River College men’s basketball team fell short in its game against Diablo Valley College on Feb. 13, losing via a final score of 83-72 in its home finale of the regular season.

The team got off to a quick start by scoring the first few points in the first half, earning a 6-0 lead, but quickly allowed Diablo Valley to come back and found themselves trailing quicker than when they got the lead. ARC needed to rely on one of its top scorers of the night, guard Jair Lang, but the team found itself in more trouble after he went down with a leg injury. 

ARC had a lot of help from Lang, who was able to keep his team in the game, and not fall too far behind with all the buckets he was scoring.

Even though he scored a lot of points, Lang said he wasn’t too happy going home with the loss against Diablo Valley. 

“I felt my overall performance was really good, but it’s all about winning for me,” Lang said. “As a guard I need to lead my team to wins and get to the playoffs— I’m not happy about the loss and I just want to get back to practice.” 

At the end of the first half, the score was 44-35 in Diablo Valley’s favor and all the momentum was on the team’s side to this point of the game. 

ARC head coach Mark Giorgi was not pleased with his team’s performance at this point of the game. During one of ARC’s timeouts in the second half, Giorgi was yelling and even swearing at his players, loud enough for fans sitting at the very back row on the other side of the court to hear.  

Early in the second half, Lang fell down during the game and stayed down holding his leg in pain. He was able to get up on his own power, but had to stay off the court for a while, although he eventually did come back to the game. The leg injury wasn’t serious according to Lang.

“I actually got a little charlie horse,” Lang said. “But like my idol, Kobe Bryant, I had to fight through that pain because I love this game and have a passion for it.”

Throughout the game, fans yelled at the referees and even at players from the other team for fouls and calls that didn’t go in ARC’s favor. It was so bad, an announcement had to be made to let fans know to be respectful to the referees and players, otherwise they would be escorted out of the game.

ARC fought hard to get back into the game, but its comeback fell short and they ended up losing their fourth game in a row with the final score of 83-72, dropping their overall record to 12-12 in the season so far.

ARC’s next game will be on the road against Santa Rosa College on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 5:30 p.m.