Well, I have been exposed to the madness that is the Coastal Conference tournament, and I am a believer...I already tried to give some sense of the wildness that was the game Friday night, but I do believe that it paled in comparison to the championship game last night.
We got to Bethel Regional High School, the site of the tournament, about three hours before the game itself started. We stopped on the way to pick up a couple of pizzas that had been ordered before we left for Bethel. We had a sled full of kids on the back of the snowmachine. The group tumbled out of the sled and into the hallway, into a place in the line that had already formed for the championship game, pizzas in tow.
There we sat for the next couple of hours, visiting with PKA fans, sipping pop, and eating pizza. Tailgating, Napaskiak style! About an hour before the game began, the line started to move. The gym had been cleared from the previous games, and it was time to get seated. We found some places in a sea of Hawks fans, saved a couple of spots for the folks from Fairbanks, and waited....
Until the uproar began...the announcer named all of the players on the teams, the handshakes went all around, and the tip-off took place.
The first half did not start off well for our Hawks. They eventually found themselves in a 14-point hole. Our coach called a time out, talked to his starters, and they came out in a 3-2 zone for their next defensive set. It seemed to confuse the other team, which was beginning to look invincible for a while. One turnover, one stop, another, and another. Slowly, the team began to pull itself out of the hole into which it had fallen.
At the end of the first half, things looked much better. The score was closer, and the guys from Tunt were looking a little more human than they had for a while. As the third quarter wore on into the fourth, the outcome sawed back and forth, but always with the Hawks trailing. Then, finally, the moment when PKA took the lead...down the stretch, first Napas, then Tunt...
And the last, few, blessed seconds when it was clear that our boys would repeat as champs for the third straight year...the final horn sounded, and the players were hugging each other, and the fans were singing, cheering, and clapping. The players climbed into the stands to sing the school fight song with the crowd, many of them in tears. It was an amazing thing to be a part of. I certainly was glad to be there.
We stuck around afterward for the girls final and the award ceremony, and finally made our way through the frigid night back down the Kuskokwim. The boys will be here for this week, and we will have an assembly to celebrate their accomplishment tomorrow. Then, next Tuesday, they will leave for Anchorage and the state tournament. We will wish them all the best, and thank them for a very exciting weekend in March.
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