De Anza College men’s basketball took a tough loss against Gavilan College Feb. 22, losing 99-73.

It was a close game in the first half as the score went back and forth, until Gavilan went on a scoring rampage in the second half.

Dominic Simpkins, 18, communications major, dropped a career-high 31 points and was the main contributor of the team’s offense, alongside Ajay Singh, 20, finance major, who dropped 20 points and led the team in rebounds.

“I wanted to do whatever I could do on the offensive side to get the win, but unfortunately it didn’t happen,” said Simpkins.

Head coach Jason Damjanovic was impressed with Simpkins’ and Singh’s contributions to the offense.

“It’s no surprise to me that Dominic got 31 points tonight,” said Damjanovic. “He’s been doing this almost all season and AJ is another big factor to this team when it comes to rebounds and scoring.”

Despite their noteworthy contributions, the players still felt aggrieved by the loss.

“20 points feels good but it’s not as good as getting the win, which is what we wanted to do here tonight,” said Singh.

Coach Damjanovic similarly felt the same way about the loss. “We played a good first half but we unfortunately couldn’t sustain through the second half and pull off the win,” Damjanovic said.

However, he was confident for the next match up against Cabrillo despite taking a loss to them earlier this year. “We’ll be fine and they play zone so we’ll watch out for that and it’s all up to defense and rebounding,” Damjanovic said.

With the team into its last few games for the season, they hope to close it out on a good note by ending the last few games with wins.

“These games are big for us and we want to do everything we can to win these games and we need to do improve on what we’ve been doing to get these last three games,” Damjanovic said.