Last week, we dove into the great Magnet upset of Phillip Simmons, and asked the question, is Magnet back? Well today we just might have the answer to that question that everyone’s been begging to have an answer to. But in order to do that we first have to discuss what occurred on the cold night of February 6th 2026, aka the night Jaidon beat the Flu. Jaidon came into the game sick, and because of this he channeled his inner Flu-game MJ, hence why February 6th is now known as the night Jaidon beat the Flu. First lets set the scene, a 7-16 Raptor basketball team was hosting the 7-14 Woodland Wolverines, a team that has had some decent wins, including an earlier win 36-34 over our Raptors, which is incredibly impressive. Going into the night the Raptors knew that in order to keep their playoff hopes alive they would need to defeat the Wolverines. Not only was this a huge game for the rest of the Raptors season, but it was also senior night, and because of this Coach Johnson displayed a “top 10 respect moment” by including all 7 seniors in the starting lineup. These seniors are Bennett Bair, Billy Bear, Jaidon Daley, Eli Sherman, Max Tippey, Campbell Stoklosa, and Matthew Semenoff. Due to all the seniors starting, a foul was called after the tip-off and the Wolverines started with the ball. Similar to the game against Phillip Simmons, the Gym was Jammed and the students really showed out, this would play a slight effect on the game later. As the game commenced, Magnet pulled of to an early lead after some really good play on both sides of the ball, including a three from Senior Eli Sherman, which really brought some more energy into the birdcage, this energy was felt throughout the gym the whole game, as because its senior night more people than usual actually showed up to the game, and we even got an appearance from Matthew Semenoff’s favorite Freshman, Tristian _____.  The lead by Magnet continued, and the energy that the birdcage provided was definitely having an effect not only on the players of both Magnet and Woodland. Arguably one of the loudest moments in birdcage history came in the second when player Matteo Farricielli, who shares DNA with senior Max Farricielli, finally checked into the game. Matteo had been coming off an injury, and none of us really expected him to play a lot today as he was still recovering, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. Matteo checked in and as one of the the tallest players on the team had fans thinking he would provide some work in the post, however Matteo caught the ball in the corner and probably thought to himself, “I’m wide open, I’mma let this fly” and thank goodness he did, because that ball found its home, and the birdcage erupted and his brother Max, was at the forefront of his supporters even saying,

we’ll he proved Max wrong and maybe himself to as Matteo checked off maybe about all 10 celebrations he wanted to do this season, as he continued to switch up the celebration coming down the court. This energy continued and Magnet while the game was close at times kept their lead. The energy from the cage wasn’t just felt by the players and the fans, but also the refs. The refs seem to have an interesting relationship with the first couple rows of the birdcage, we don’t really have a name for this area but mainly just the senior guys. Ref 1, we’ll call him, had already warned us about trash talk after an early comment was made during shootaround, this comment from Ref 1 was respected and the birdcage was overall all pretty well behaved for the most part. However this changed around the third quarter, when the game started to get really interesting the refs were letting them play, and very little calls being made, leading to some hot tempers all along the gym. After Ref 1 finally blew his whistle about midway through the third, the birdcage was fuming, and after some “kind” remarks made by the birdcage, Ref 1 nicely asked us to SIT DOWN and not stand for the rest of this game, but yeah that didn’t happen. We did stay seated for a good bit, but after some inspirational messages from the students, and the seniors realising this was their last home game we chose to stand up once there was 5 minutes left in the 4th an action that Mr Ref 1 was fine with, much to our pleasure. So once those five minutes came, we were up, and this was probably when the Raptors needed fan support the most as some of the Woodland fans including, blue jacket lady were getting increasingly louder. Due to this instigation the birdcage was not only letting the players have it, but also a blue jacket lady who would dance after every Woodland positive moment, so Magnet matched the energy and clapped back, maybe to a point that was a little overboard but it ended up being fine. After Magnet extended the lead the birdcage began shushing the opposing fans, who had gotten increasingly louder, to a point that didn’t make sense, because they were losing. Also around this team the birdcage started pointing to the scoreboard, a common gesture when opposing fans will not close the gap between their teeth. This was very much infuriating to the blue jacket lady, and she then started pointing at students and telling them to, “meet her outside” and she also would show text on her ipad, but since we are very far away, we obviously couldn’t decipher said message. These threats sparked some unrest, but as some students noted, our SRO was close to the doors which was comforting to Magnet fans who thought she was specifically pointing at them, which include myself, Max Farricielli, Jace Gutting, and Jack Tierney. Overall we ended up being fine, and with Magnet being up 4 with 30 seconds left and a Wolverine turnover giving the ball back to the Raptors, Magnet solidified the dub, unlike last time against phil, the court was not stormed as people were eager to leave the gym with the help of the police due to earlier situations. Here we are back at the start where the question is back, Is Magnet Back? After these events there is a clear answer, yes Magnet is Back and I think we’re here to stay.