As the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST) weekend kicked off with a wonderfully exciting sports day, the Academy had the privilege of hosting the boys basketball tournament hosted on campus in the gym. The highly anticipated game finally came and like every year, was incredibly eventful.
Yet most of the action occurred before the game. As hosts, there was quite a bit of planning to do. Co-President of the MIST (Muslim Inter-Scholastic Tournament) Club, Hania Hashmi, recounts, “We were super excited, we didn’t think it was in our cards, but MIST Dallas was the one to ask us ‘Hey could we use your court?’ and of course we said yes!” Hashmi reflects on the hard work they’ve put in for weeks continuing, “…we had to arrange security and clean up, figure out parking and order concessions, as well as find people to do the scoreboard.”
The efforts of the BHA MIST team was clear as the event approached. Junior player on the BHA MIST Basketball Team and Varsity BHA Basketball Team, Shayan Iqbal, shared his experience. “We’re a really good team, because all our players are on the actual varsity team, and we’ve prepared a lot!” He claims he trusts in his team and despite one of his players suffering an injury last minute, Iqbal remains confident. He shares, “There were a couple complications, mostly due to chemistry because we were creating a new team and figuring out how we played together, but we’ve worked hard and hopefully it will show today on court.”
And show on court it did! The tournament kicked off with an intense game between the BHA MIST team and Cedar Ridge High School, remaining tied for a while. Despite a couple close calls, with almost a minute left on the clock and the score an unchanging 41-41, the other team was required to forfeit and BHA won! Despite the tie the team remained confident and excited after their first win. The tournament continued, lasting almost seven hours with eight schools competing against one another continuously. BHA kept their pace noticeably, almost winning against our long time rival, Islamic School of Irving with a final score of 19-17. Despite the loss, they bounced back quickly, playing an amazing game against IANT (Islamic Association Of North Texas) Quranic Academy winning 36-24 and making it to the playoffs.
Overall the home team won two games out of five played and made it to the playoffs. Despite intense competition and extremely difficult games, BHA placed amongst the top four in the end! Alhamdulillah, the BHA boys team played amazingly well and to the best of their abilities for hours. And despite injuries and exhaustion, they pushed through in the name of school spirit, making sure to keep the morale up, and their hard work paid off. Due to qualifying in the top four teams out of eight, BHA made it past regionals and to MIST nationals this summer!
