distractors: hoping claiming wishing
sentence: From the spectators' point of view,last year's basketball  season  for my high school team was nothing  short  of an embarrassment.And  while  0--20 is certainly nothing to be proud of,that season had a bigger impact on me than any other.As a team captain,I knew it probably wouldn't be the  easiest  year,but did I ever think we would lose every game?Of course not.Since six of our top players had graduated,it was clear that we were a (n)  young  team who would struggle.The struggle began earlier than expected,  though  ,as our team center was suspended for the season,and two key members decided to  quit  for some reason.At this point,dropping out probably passed through every player's mind,but in the end,we all stuck it out,  [MASK]  to work still harder.