The night of Feb. 2nd was an extremely emotional game at Skyline College. It was the first game for the Skyline college men’s basketball team since the unexpected passing of their teammate, KeDraun Buckner.

Clayton Ladine a former teammate of Buckner, described the night as emotional.

“We all love KD,” Ladine reflected. “We all had tears in our eyes.”

The somber intention of this night was definitely expressed, but as soon as 5 o’clock struck, the game tipped off against Ohlone College and the meloncholy quickly turned into adrenaline.

On this night, the Skyline men’s basketball team played with all of their hearts in honor of KeDraun Buckner. The game began as a quite tight contest as both Skyline and Ohlone were traded scores.

Then all of a sudden, Skyline created an offensive frenzy by establishing their team philosophy of ball movement. They would work themselves in the paint with some short shots at the rim, courtesy of forward Chris Fontaine.

After getting some ball movement in the paint, it opened up for Skyline’s three point shooting. In the first, Clayton Ladine, Darna Stewart and Moises Sandoval, started leading the early offensive with their three shoot making ability.

Most of the three point shooting came of the hand of Clayton Ladine who had five, three pointers and total in the half with 19 points as Skyline would score 36 points as a team in the first half.

They were playing with such tenacity defensively, making it difficult for Ohlone to make shots and Chris Fontaine was the rim protection – snatching up rebounds that kept Skyline rolling.

Skyline would lead 36 to 34, however; Skyline kept finding themselves in foul trouble throughout the game. In the first half, Ohlone would get eight free throw attempts and convert six of them. However in the second half Ohlone got to the free throw line a total of 24 times and converted 14 free throws.

Skyline’s defense started to break down a bit and allowed some easy quick shots from Ohlone.

Ladine was asked about the second half of the game and what went wrong for them. He simplified by saying, “We hit some tough spots; they got into the paint. We got a couple of turnovers.”

Head Coach Justin Piergrossi felt that the night was full of emotion despite the foul trouble.

“They were ready and really supportive,” Piergrossi said. “There was a lot of emotions tonight and we tried to control it.”

Unfortunately, this allowed Ohlone to hang around and eventually take the lead away the lead from Skyline late in the second half.

“It was emotional from the start,” said Jake Salinero. “We are all focused. We got by 16, but in last 10 minutes the wheels fell off.”

As Skyline lost 70 to 65, the electrifying emotions of the game settle down into the grim reality of the loss. However in the end, the Skyline men’s basketball team has forever won the soul of KeDraun Buckner.