"We got beat," was the response from Hastings Boys' High School basketball coach Curtis Wooten yesterday.
"They are a really good team and way bigger than us so they killed us on the board," Wooten lamented after Rosmini College thumped the Hastings lads 89-41 in their opening match of the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Championship at Palmerston North.
However, he expected his young charges to put aside their disappointment today with victories over Hamilton Boys' High School at 9am and Te Awamutu College in a 4pm tip off.
"It's been a long, long time since we were beaten like that," says the coach of the zone 3 qualifiers who recalled HBHS beating Rosmini in similar fashion in 2013 by 40 points when the Auckland school were the top seeds.
While Rosmini are this year's Auckland City champions and unknown quantities, today's opponents are familiar foes for HBHS.