The Road Goes On Forever... And The Party Never Ends

On Saturday, Dec. 29, I watched my final day of basketball for the 2012 calendar year. As it turns out, it was also one of the more intriguing sports days of the year as well. The day before I decided to attempt a triple-header of sorts, planning to hit the Hillsboro girls game in Jerseyville at 3:30 p.m., followed by the girls and boys championship double dip at the Carlinville Holiday Classic, starting at 6:30 p.m. That meant that there was a pretty long day of driving and basketball in my future, but figured I'm young(ish) and it beat sitting at home by myself.

So at 2:30 p.m., I departed Hillsboro and pointed my car due west on Rt. 16 for the land of the Jerseyville Lady Panthers. An hour an 15 minutes later, I arrived at Jersey Community High School, roughly a quarter and a half late for my game, which has become an unfortunate trend for me. I'd like to blame my rash of tardiness on the addition of my one-year-old daughter Grace into my life, but in reality, I haven't been on time for much since birth, and I may have even taken my sweet time on that one as well.
 
With the contest set to be a battle for seventh in the eight team tournament, the game may not have been a "must-see" one for individuals without a vested interest. But the match-up between the Lady Toppers and the host school definitely had it's intriguing moments. When I entered the gym with 4:30 to play in the second, Hillsboro led by just two. By the time the quarter ended, the Lady Toppers had scored 20 unanswered points and had all but put the game away.

The second half went along the same lines as the later half of the first, with Hillsboro pretty much in control. The only drama that remained was whether Shelby Gray would get point number 1,000 for her career. Gray entered the game 22 points short of the milestone and got all but one of those in the Jerseyville game. Several times in the final minute opportunities arose to push the HHS senior into the elite company of Hope Schulte, Maria Pretnar, Kelly Seaton and JoGari Zerrusen, but shots that usually found their mark rimmed out, leaving her on the edge of the history books, at least until the Lady Toppers' next game, which is on Thursday, Jan. 3, in Gillespie. Despite the convincing win, Gray's face echoed the disappointment of not hitting the 1,000 point mark. Disappoint may be too harsh of a term, but it's definitely the saddest I've ever seen a player look at the final buzzer after a 21-point performance. Hopefully she enjoy her moment in Gillespie to the same degree.

From Jerseyville, I hit the road once again, bound for the Big House on West Main, which while not actually a house is fairly good sized for a school the size of Carlinville. The girls championship went pretty much as I expected, with Litchfield bringing home their third consecutive tournament title. I believe that I have been present for two of those three championships, and I'm not sure that this team is better than the previous two, but the potential is definitely there. A big part of that potential comes from sophomores Riley Scharf and Tessa Steffens, both of whom made the all-tournament team. All told, tenth graders would make up more than half of the seven player all-tourney squad at Carlinville, with the Cavies' Megan Stayton and Nokomis' Ashley Schneider joining the Litchfield duo. Coupled with a handful of other talented sophomores, like Nokomis' Josie Foster, Southwestern's Ashlyn Ringhausen, and Pana's Sydney Lett, among others, the future is pretty bright for girls basketball in the area.

About the time the boys championship game between Lincolnwood and Litchfield started up, so did a cold that has been kicking my tail for the last few days. The pounding in my head and the pressure behind my eyes was aggravated by the sight of my long-range camera lens bouncing across the gym floor when I failed to realize that my camera bag wasn't zipped up. Fortunately, the lens was fine (I'll find out next time I shoot whether or not it truly is) and my attention turned again to the hardwood.

The game wasn't quite what I expected as Litchfield jumped out in front early and stayed ahead by a large margin throughout the first three quarters. It's not that the Panthers were ahead that was surprising, it was the offensive surge that they presented. The previous few games that I had seen LHS in action, the Panthers had shown some trouble scoring, but on Saturday, they seemed to do so at will, with Mason Steffens having what I would call a career game. Less surprising, to me at least, was the Lancers comeback. I'd watched Lincolnwood pull off the same trick a week or so before when they turned a double-digit deficit to South Fork into a 12-point win.

This time, the rally came up just short, but the game itself was still an example of how sometimes big games can actually live up to the expectations that they sometimes bring. I pulled into my driveway at 10:30 p.m., eight hours, three games and more than 100 miles after I originally left it.

Looking back, the trip is probably part of the reason I've been sick the last three days, but I'm not sure I would do anything different. Moments like the ones that occurred last Saturday are why I like my job. I'm not always able to be everywhere I want to in person, but when I am able to go to a game, I feel like I have the ability to tell the story behind the stats. If you just look at the box scores of those three games, you don't have any idea that Gray so close to history, or that the Lady Panthers had continued their dominance in Carlinville, or that the Lancers had nearly pulled out another dramatic comeback.

The idea that I get to tell those stories is what helps inspire me to keep driving to those random gyms, and hopefully it will continue to do so for years to come.