Rainy Friday With a Big Rivalry Game

Hello friends and Hivers. It was a rainy one all through out the day. First photo was taken right before I went inside to start my workday. The second shot is my walk from the parking lot to the entrance of my son's high school. Well this published article is not going to be about the weather outside but rather what's going to happen inside the school. Today I'm going to describe the events of a Friday night city rivalry basketball game.

Most of the time on Friday nights during sporting events the game has a certain theme. This game's theme was,"Pack the Gym, Hoover Night." Hoover is an elementary school in the school district. All kids from Hoover get in free to the game and get a shirt that celebrates the occasion. At the start of the school day the basketball team stopped by Hoover Elementary to visit the younger kids and give them high fives. A pretty neat thing that is, right?

https://youtube.com/shorts/6QqrwUUjxeA?si=2NDb_eQ1UcYcnjVn

What you see above is a picture and video I took of pre-game warm ups. They typically start out with layups, than do pull up jumpers,shooting drills, and end with some three vs three play. During layups the dunkers horn in on their skills if the referees aren't around. If a referee catches it than it's a foul against the offending team. The video is a quick three second video of my son throwing it down.

Well it's time for the tip off and get things going. I decided to do a video of this experience so you can hear and feel energy. Both sides are excited and chanting for thier teams. The schools are less than 15 minutes away from each other. So you could say the gym was packed. The home side stands of course had quite a bit more fans. The build up for this game was there when Thomas Jefferson (away team) upset another city team a few weeks ago. There has been a lot talk with both teams believing they could claim a victory tonight.

Well the first quarter was a back forth fight. A few lead changes and Thomas Jefferson (TJ) actually started the game with a 4-0 lead. My son had 5 points in the quarter. One of key plays was a shot he made while being fouled, he turned it into a three point play after making the free throw. Also TJ had one of thier better players in foul trouble with 2 fouls. His team lead 17-16 after one quarter.

The second quarter was probably the best quarter of the game. Three lead changes in the quarter and with three minutes to go TJ had the biggest lead of the game to that point at 6 points.

Craziness happened with just 3.6 seconds left with game tied at 31 all. The ball was inbounded to my son and he took off on a fast dribble to take one more shot. With just 0.7 seconds left a player from TJ tried to take a charge but he was way too early and was called for the block. So my son went to the line to shoot two free throws. Away from the play, a TJ player was complaining with one of the officials and got a technical foul. So my son now has 4 free throws to shoot. He made them all and now his team gets the ball back with under a second.

I couldn't believe it they threw up an alley near the rim and our tallest player caught it and made it. He slightly celebrated where he made the shot and the official called him for a technical foul. I thought it was a BS call. The foul will be accessed at the start of the 3rd quarter. So 6 points in 3.6 seconds, the home crowd was going crazy, our biggest lead to that point. Home team up 37-31 at the break and my son had 14 points for the quarter and 19 so far in the game.

The start of the quarter started with TJ shooting the technical fall shots than getting the ball back. They ended up taking the lead by one with about two minutes in. Than the next few minutes a lot of back and forth but we had the lead.

With about 5 minutes left in the quarter my son hit a big 3 pointer than came down again and hit long mid range shot. This would be the last time TJ led. They lost two of there starters due to fouling out in this quarter.

Part of the game plan was to make TJ play a fast paced game and to get them into foul trouble. TJ has a solid group of 5 starters but there bench is a big drop off. Just watching the game the remaining starters for them did look tired. My son had 10 points in the quarter bringing his game total to 29! Home team up by 64-49. Another player on our team had a big third quarter scoring 14 points. My son turned from scorer to contributer during this quarter and into the final quarter.

The last quarter we started to pour it on TJ. Once we had about 25 point lead we began to pull our starters and insert the bench into the game. My son was the first to be pulled and when he went out he got a standing ovation from the home crowd. Even some of the TJ fans clapped. I can't tell you how much that made me feel proud of him. He ended the game with 33 points and I believe he was 14 of 15 from the free throw line. I know he made 11 in row after his lone miss. The official statistics have not been released but he stacked up some numbers as well. The most important part is the team improves to a 5-0 record with a well deserved 84-64 win.

After the game the student body section empties out onto the court to await for the player to come back out. I waited for what seemed like an eternity. The reason behind that is he got interviewed by the local sports media and by the city paper. Unfortunately the college coach he was suppose to meet with was not there. I'm not sure what happened with that but he had his personal best high school game of his career, woohoo! If you want to see the interview let me know in the comments and I will share

One game down another today. Thanks for reading and following along as I summarized this great game he had. Take care, be safe, and have a great end to the weekend 😊