Following their recent win over West Valley College, the De Anza College men’s basketball team had their first loss of the conference season and were defeated 97-62 by San Jose City College in a match-up Jan. 8 at San Jose City College.

The tip-off went to the San Jose City Jaguars who scored the first points of the game. After the De Anza Dons failed to catch up, head coach Jason Damjanovic called a time-out minutes into the match.

Fans who disagreed with the referees’ calls yelled insults and continued to taunt them throughout the game. Despite distractions from the animated crowd and a last-minute backcourt violation, the Dons succeeded in keeping the Jaguars within reach, trailing them by eight points with a score of 39-31 at half-time.   

The Dons were called to step up for this match against the Jaguars, who are ranked in the Top 20 for the state.  Even with a momentary setback in the beginning of the first half, Dons forward Eric Heslin was the leading scorer of the game for both teams with a total of 26 points, out-shooting the Jaguars’ high scorer, guard Shaheed Young by four points. 

At the start of the second half, the Jaguars missed few shots while the Dons struggled to stay in the game. The Jaguars dominated the boards scoring 58 points in the second half – nearly double the 31 scored by the Dons. 

“They made a lot of shots in the second half and part of that’s because I don’t think we guarded them that well,” Damjanovic said.

Despite the loss, Damjanovic looks forward to the season. The San Jose City Jaguars are state-ranked. However, it wasn’t just their superior skills that were the reason for the Dons’ loss. According to Damjanovic, the loss can also be attributed to the lackluster performance from some of the Dons players. 

“It’s effort and pride. We got a lot of guys out, but that’s an excuse to me. That’s why you keep 15 on a team. The guys that are put in with more playing time than they’re accustomed to need to adjust,” he said. “I think we may have needed this. We may have needed kind of a reality check.”

Currently, the Dons are 1-1 and the San Jose City Jaguars are 2-0 going into their next match-ups of the Coast Conference season.