The ball dribbles down to the basketball hoop and an attempt to score is made. The ball makes it through the hoop and the players are divided with excited and bitter emotions. It’s a simple game of basketball being played at junior Jett Jameson’s house. On most days, there are six other junior boys: Jacob Skwira, Jaxon Midgett, Brendan Leuthauser, Jack Sebastian, Troy Ludwig and Brenden Yates.

“[Playing together] is a huge reason as to why we are really close, and obviously without the court, we’d all be friends but I think that’s really brought most of us together,” Jameson said.

The group of friends have been playing basketball together since middle school. During the early years of playing together, the basketball hoop was at the end of a court, which is how the group got its name, the name being the court. Now the hoop is moved to Jameson’s house. These days, the batch of friends get together around two or three times a week when the weather is nice.

“We go down as much as we can,” Skwira said. “We used to go down every Wednesday after school and then once we all started driving, we’d all come down on the weekends and then just spend days there, play basketball and have a good time.”

On a typical night playing, two teams are made and they play a game to 11 points. Sometimes it will be just four of them playing and other nights all seven are there. With school and other activities, there are lots of times when the group can’t meet up as a whole. Occasionally, friends outside of the group will come to play.

“The best part about having game time is just knowing you’re going to get to

see your friends that week and knowing that everybody’s going to have fun,” Jameson said.

None of the members of the group play basketball competitively anymore, but it’s still the sport they choose to play together. A big part of their friendship has come from this weekly playing time. During high school, it can be easy to lose connections with friends but many of the boys consider these playing times a reason why they are still so close.

“It’s made us all closer, we all play all the time so it mostly brought us closer in the sense that we see each other after school,” Leuthauser said.

Last year, the group put on a small tournament to donate money to charity, it took place on the last day of school. Each of the boys put in a certain amount of money and decided to give it to the National Children’s Cancer Society. In total, they donated around $60. They hope to do another charity tournament this year and raise more money.

“It just feels good because we are all playing for the same thing,” Skwira said. “We don’t know where the money’s going but it’s going to a good cause and we’re not blowing it off on something else,” Skwira said.

The group hopes to continue playing basketball together throughout high school. They realize that they will probably split up for college but they have talked about meeting up over summers to play.

“I’d say we definitely stay a solid friend group past high school and maybe after college,” Jameson said. “I wouldn’t be too shocked if we come back and everybody picks a spot and even in like 10 years we all come back one day and just play a game.”