[TimTaylor]

4A freshman boys game. We were in the smaller gym & it was SRO. The game was run & gun from the opening tip & never let up. Initialy the visiting team got up by as much as 10, but the home team hung in there and was down by only 4 at the half. Home team caught up shortly into the 3rd, and from there until the end of the game it stayed very close - no one lead by more than 4. We had something like 22 lead changes in the 2nd half, 8 of those in the last 3 minutes of the 4th. It came down to the wire - home up 52-51, at the line to shoot 2, with 6.8 seconds left on the clock. Home made both FT's, visitors brought the ball down and got 2 chances at a 3 to tie it before home controlled the 2nd rebound & time expired. It was so loud in the gym I couldn't hear the final horn - and I was the L, standing almost directly under the scoreboard.

I had a great partner - guy I went through classes with. We have very similar philosophy and worked very well together - good thing, cause it was intense from start to finish. The only down side was the 60+ fouls we called, and not one was a chippy. Both teams were very physical & emotional, so we had to do what was necessary to keep a lid on it. We stayed right on top of things and managed to quickly defuse a couple of situations that could have gotten pretty nasty. Discussing it post game we both felt there was no way we could have called it any differently without letting the game get completely out of control. After showering/changing, we ran into both coaches out in the hall talking with each other, and they both told us they thought we did a very good job of managing a really tough game.

It's kind of sad to see the season end, but this was a great way to go out!