Comeback of the Century

I could spend today's post blogging about the weather (-15 wind chill and a ground blizzard) or I could blog about what I plan to do on my day home snowed in (work from home/bake cookies/organize scholarship stuff for Whitney). But instead of that, I'm going to concentrate on something big...The Greatest Comeback of the Century.

OK, you wonder what could I talk about.  Only the biggest basketball game of the year, the Norman High School Tigers vs. the Norman North High School Timberwolves.  The Crosstown Clash.  You see about 10 years ago, Norman decided that there were too many students for one high school so they made a second one.  And instead of dividing the town east/west (you know poor/rich) they went north/south (still poor/rich but not as much). We are Norman Tigers (the Original). We have a longstanding tradition of athletics. The other team has been recruiting getting better athletes in many sports, but basketball has remained at NHS. The girl's team has consistently been ranked in the top 5 in the state and last year was runner up in the finals. The boy's team unfortunately has pretty much sucked (sorry but have to be honest).

This year the girl's won handily (22 straight times now) but the boy's game was going to be a contest.  The boy's got a new coach, they had a new attitude and were on a seven game win going into the game. 

The game started off not looking good.  The score was only seven points difference, but none of our shots were falling. I was even considering leaving at halftime. But I stayed to support Whitney who was feeling down because she had to be benched from pom due to an injury and couldn't be out with her squad supporting the team in the last rivalry game of her career. The fourth quarter starts and our team is down by 15. 15 points is HUGE in an 8 minute quarter. But with four minutes left we were only down by 7. And then the threes started to fall. Suddenly we were tied with 45 seconds left in the game. And we had the ball. The crowd was going wild. Then for some strange reason, no one went for the basket. The team spent 45 very long seconds near half court. So overtime came to us. Four long minutes.

We scored the first basket, stole the ball and scored again. Time ticked away. The other team scored and then scored again. And with five seconds left, they fouled us. The crowd held their breath. The first shot went swish. Timeout was called. The second shot was missed, they got the rebound and all I could think was don't foul. A last second shot from mid-court and it was over.  Norman Tigers Win!

The student section stormed the court. The administrators tried to get them to leave and they cleared out quickly. But the talk will never end.  The drought is over. The Tigers prevail!

The student section being removed from mid-court