Four games into Y-ball and the season has had its ups and its downs. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors alike continue to thrive off of the intensity of Y-ball from the beginning of January to the end of March.

“My favorite part of Y-ball is the competitiveness,” said Kevin Falkenberg, senior. “People take it seriously and have a lot of fun at the same time. The fact that it’s a mental game is also something that I love about it.”

Falkenberg is on the Lakers this year. His team has gone two and two this season; they won their most recent game against the Heat by 21 points, keeping the Heat to only four points in the first half.

Sophomore, Zorian Shiffman, is a part of the freshmen and sophomore Y-ball league. He is on the Clippers.

“We got our first win this weekend improving to 1-3 on the season,” said Shiffman, “My favorite part of Y-ball is having fun playing a great sport with my friends and the intensity by which all the games are played. This is my fourth year and I have had a great experience all three years prior and so far this year as well.”

A lot of Y-ball teams incorporate different strategies into their gameplay, whether it be different plays or maybe even ways to psych out the opposing team.

“My teammates and I love to talk,” Falkenberg said. “We feel like it gives us an edge that will help us win. Laker Nation loves to get into people’s heads.”

John Dicanio, a senior who’s also on the Lakers, echoed the thoughts of his teammate, Kevin Falkenberg.

“Our team uses the strategy of talking trash throughout the whole game,” said Dicanio. “It doesn’t matter what the score is, our team wants to get inside your team’s head.” 

As for the negative aspects of the season thus far, players seem to have general complaints about the referees.

“Just this past weekend I received a technical foul for slamming the ball against the court and then later rolling the ball to the official after I was warned,” said Shiffman.

However, that was not the first infraction that Shiffman had experienced regarding the officials of the game. Week after week, it seems he has some sort of issue.

“Two weekends ago, I had a referee insulting my shot selection right in my ear,” said Shiffman, “When I told him off for this, he told me that if I breathed another word he would kick me out of the game.”

The second week of games, there was another issue between Shiffman and the game official regarding player eligibility– the problem being that officials seem to not be aware of the rules, being that they are different than other basketball leagues.

“In essence, I have had a conflict with the officials in 75 percent of the games this season,” said Shiffman.

Not only to players get upset about the referees, they also become upset over the one main aspect of the game: winning or losing.

“The low-lights of the season have been losing,” said Falkenberg. “I hate to lose. We got killed by the Bulls and lost to the Warriors by three.”

Throughout all of the low-lights of Y-ball, the positive gameplay and friendly attitudes are overpowering.

“Looking on the bright side, I have had the best season of my career so far in terms of my performance on the court and last season’s champions started 1-3 as well and were ALSO named the Clippers, so there is hope,” said Shiffman.