On Tuesday, Dec. 22, the  LHS boy’s basketball team hosted the number one ranked team, Brandon Valley. Despite the competitiveness between these two schools in all of their athletics over the years, this year, the Patriots came together as a school to show their respect and support for the Brandon Valley community. 

Head Brandon Valley football coach, Chad Garrow, along with head basketball coach, Brent Deckert, have both been battling life-threatening cancer. Coach Garrow was unable to coach his football team this fall due to his illness, but coach Deckert is able to coach his team despite his life being at stake. The LHS student section, along with the coaches and players of the LHS basketball team, came together and all wore Brandon Valley T-shirts during warm-ups in support of the two coaches fighting against cancer. Despite how much the Patriots had been anticipating this matchup against the Bobcats, and how much the teams may have disliked each other, LHS came together to fight for a cause that everyone knew was much larger than basketball. 

Even though the LHS student section was not required to wear these T-shirts to support the two Brandon Valley coaches, everyone rallied their support,and knew that their own priorities or outfits at the time did not matter as much as showing the respect and care to these two coaches. LHS Seniors decided that a theme for the basketball game would not be necessary, and was not nearly as important as representing the character of LHS and supporting these coaches. Students were also able to donate these T-shirts back to Brandon Valley so that their town can continue to  carry on the fight against cancer together in their T-shirts. 

Although the Patriots may love their school themes for the games, everybody came together and showed their respect for one another in the battle against cancer. It would have been easy to treat that night as any other, against a rival in a basketball game and go at the other team from the moment they entered the building. Instead, LHS students, players and coaches looked past their egos, and were able to team up as one that night and show that they were willing to fight cancer with those two coaches together.