Sportsbeat
Stories to tell the grandchildren
The word unpredictable comes to mind when thinking about what happened last Friday to the Hurons boys? basketball team in Hale. It is certainly what makes the NCAA basketball tournament, which starts today, so appealing. The excitement of seeing a tiny Division I school knocking off a heavyweight. At least that?s what makes me watch. Going into last Friday?s district title game between the Hurons and the host Hale Eagles, on paper, it looked like a mismatch.
In the final weeks of the season, Rogers City battled Inland Lakes tough, but fell short. It was the same Inland Lakes team that lost by 24 to Hale. When tournament time arrived, head coach Tom Adrian, didn?t have the same team he had during the regular season. They stepped it up a notch or two.
The boys won that first, confidence-boosting game against Oscoda, rode the winning wave on the home court two nights later and were ready to take on the 22-1 Hale Eagles last Friday in front of a packed gymnasium.
Either Hale had read too much into their own headlines, or were busy making traveling plans for the regional tournament, but they weren?t ready for eight-win Rogers City. I?m sure Hale?s head coach told them to not look past the Hurons, but saying it and believing it are two different things.
Adrian said a person in authority at Hale told him before the game, ?We should be happy to get where we were.? In another account, someone was talking as if the game already had been played, that ?the win tonight? would make it the most successful season ever.
It would go down as a memorable game all right, but one the players from the 2008-09 team will not soon forget. ?They had kind of taken it for granted that they were going to win,? said Adrian. The coach said the boys had kept preparing themselves for the second season. Even though the regular season provided challenges with some mighty tough teams on the schedule, they wanted to pull it all together for districts.
That they did. Senior Justin Idalski made a key three pointer when Hale was leading, 37-31, a basket coach Adrian called a difference maker. Idalski could slash to the basket with the best the players in northern Michigan, but struggled at times from the free-throw line and outside. Adrian was confident that he could make the three because the coaches had been working with him on putting more air under the ball. Idalski, and his 28 points, were certainly keys, but the entire team
In the end, it would be Hale that would wilt under the pressure of having their dream season come to an end a lot quicker than they had expected. ?It seemed like nobody on their team wanted the ball,? said Adrian of the closing moments of the contest. ?They never got off another shot. They were all passing it off and hoping somebody else would take it, that?s what it looked like to me.? Adrian couldn?t fight back the emotions after the game, especially when considering the adversity they had endured.
?I would like to see them celebrate that way when they get good grades,? he said. As for the person in authority, who told the coach Rogers City should be glad they made it that far, Adrian made sure he shook his hand after the game.