Galesburg vs. Ottawa (Girl's Basketball)
Class 3A Sectionals (@ Metamora)
(2/21/11)
The trip to Metamora started with my typical 3:00 lunch from the Subway drive-thru. However, today something happened at the drive-thru that completely drew my ire. One of my biggest pet peeves....
As I waited behind a white Bonneville in the Monmouth Subway drive-thru, the woman in the driver's seat began to pull away from the window, when she suddenly stopped after just a few short feet. It was then, that she threw out an apparently empty gas station coffee cup against the Subway building. I was shocked! Then, she tossed out her half-smoked, still-lit cigarette.
I very nearly got out of my car to approach her with the cup, but she pulled away. Littering is my biggest pet peeve. It's absolutely pure laziness. If you don't want to look at your wadded up McDonald's bag, throw it on the floor in the back seat of your car. You simply can't hold onto your trash for a five-minute drive across town to throw it in your trash can? Even after the game, I thought back to this incident, and it is purely irritating and absolutely disrepectful.
Anyway, on to basketball. I picked Jimmie up at 3:30, to make the trip over to Metamora. Galesburg has the first game of the twin bill, facing the Ottawa Pirates at 6:00. I wanted to make sure and get to the gym early (is that a surprise?), before the three-point shootout began.
The Sectional games are being held in the new gym, also called the North Gym. Ironically, the new gym is actually smaller than the old South gym. The new gym seats 1,600. The old gym seats 1,800. Metamora boy's basketball coach Jim Youngman prefers to play in the old gym, and according to one person I talked to during an earlier broadcast, it was because he liked to use the spotlights in that gym for the warmups. Not sure if there is truth to that or not.
We arrived before anyone else, except for Metamora athletic director Jared Hart, who was getting the scorer's table ready, and Metamora girl's basketball coach Steve Gorrell was setting up the three-point shootout racks. That was it, the gym was to ourselves and I staked out our claim at the press table behind the scorer's table.
One of the first things I did, was look for a place to hang the WAIK banner, that would be seen by the most people. I hung it up on the wall at the top of the bleachers behind us.
The Ottawa radio station (WCMY) crew arrived not too much later. One of their broadcasters shared an old Galesburg radio story from a game that was played out at Ottawa. This was when hard line phones were used for the broadcasts (hard lines are still used, but cell phone broadcasts account for the majority).
He said the WAIK and WGIL broadcasters got into an argument over who had the right to use the courtesy line. The Ottawa broadcaster said one of the stations called ahead and secured the line, but he appeased the other station by running over 100 feet of phone down to an office.
That reminded me of a story when I first began broadcasting with the old WHHK (Galva) and WGEN (Geneseo). We relied on the hard line broadcasts, as cell phone technology was in its infancy. In a game at Stark County in Toulon, we had to run a couple hundred feet. I recall running phone cords across the stage, down a long hallway, through another hallway, the auxiliary gym, up a flight of stairs and into the A.D.'s office or a secretary's office. Not sure how many feet it was, but it certainly had to be a few hundred feet.
It was a tight fit along press row, with us and WCMY at one table. I always joke that I get so spoiled at Thiel Gymnasium with all of the room we have, I just sprawl my stuff everywhere. I have to manage small spaces when we go on the road. It worked out well, and we had a near scare with our Cellcaster unit.
The power supply to our Cellcaster has been held together by electrical tape for over a year, and it finally started to slip in recent broadcasts. I've had to doctor it up with some duct tape, which it has held up, however during one broadcast we did get cut off at one point. As game time neared, the machine kept shorting out, giving me some anxiety for the broadcast.
I discovered that it was cutting out, due to the closeness of the workers at the scorer's table, and any type of brushing up against the cord that was hanging below, would cause it to short. Just before the pregame show, I readjusted everything, and it was smooth sailing. However, I was very wary of the situation and it really took some of my focus off the broadcast. In hindsight, it was a much better experience than the following broadcast, which you will read about in the Game 141 Blog.
My favorite name of a player from this season may just hail from Ottawa. Hanna Sakakibara (5'5" Sr.) is actually one of triplets. Her other two sisters no longer play basketball. The pronunciation of her last name is Suh-KOK-ee-bar-uh. Of course, it was pronounced about six other ways during the broadcast by yours truly. It's one of those pronunciations where I know how to say it, but then I see it spelled out halfway through saying it, completely flubbing it.
Ottawa coach Mike Cooper said a key for his team was to get a good start against the Silver Streaks. Unfortunately for the Lady Pirates, that didn't happen. Galesburg was hot! In the first minute, the Streaks knocked down a pair of three-pointers on back-to-back possessions and created four Ottawa turnovers. In fact, Galesburg scored their first 24 points from beyond the three-point line.
The Streaks jumped out to a 15-0 lead at the 3:48 mark of the 1st quarter, and went scoreless the rest of the quarter. Galesburg led 15-4 after one. In the 2nd quarter, a Jamie Johnson three-pointer (celebrating her 18th birthday) gave Galesburg the new IHSA single-season record for three-pointers, draining their 366th of the year. The old mark of 365 was set by last year's team, and to put it into perspective Crystal Lake Prairie Ridge is 3rd on the list with 260.
Galesburg led 30-19 at halftime, after a driving rebound put back by Tai Peachey at the buzzer. The Streaks went 8-27 from the three-point line in the first half.
After an offensive slowdown in the latter stages of the first quarter and throughout much of the 2nd quarter, it was important for the Streaks offense to catch fire again to start the 2nd half, otherwise Ottawa could sneak back in. There would be no sneaking back in, as the Streaks outscored Ottawa 25-7 in the 3rd quarter to take a 55-26 lead in the 3rd quarter.
When the final horn sounded, Galesburg came out victorious, 61-34, after playing a slow-down game throughout the 4th quarter to eat clock. The Silver Streaks move on to the Sectional championship with a 27-6 record, their first Sweet 16 appearance since 2003.
Jamie Johnson poured in a game-high 25 points, with a 16-point showing in the 3rd quarter alone. She worked the inside-outside game, knocking down three three-pointers, and driving inside for several layups. The "Happy Birthday Jamie" sign in the stands was raised in celebration throughout the night!
Speaking of the stands, the Galesburg crowd was tremendous, and I am really looking forward to the Silver Streaks turnout on Thursday. The Streaks had nearly three times the amount of fans that Ottawa brought. Judging by the Richwoods turnout in the second game (and the short distance separating Metamora & Peoria), it should be a black and silver gym Thursday night.
There was an error in the first quarter of the game, when Baylie Boyer appeared to pick up her first foul of the game. It was listed on the scoreboard as Sadee Hamilton's second. Galesburg assistant Jay Barshinger asked the official scorer how many fouls Hamilton had, and he was told one. He approached the table again at the end of the quarter, and was told two. This caused a delay to start the second quarter. I had Boyer picking up the last foul, not Hamilton. Galesburg also had this, as well as the Register-Mail's Todd Rudolf and Aaron Frey, sitting in front of me. Fortunately, the gaffe didn't make a difference. A similar circumstance occurred against Ottawa late in the game. A foul was called on Kara Kistenfeger, but was charged to Bree Carlson. The scoreboard had Carlson with three. I asked Rudolf after the game, and he did say the correction was made.
Jimmie and I stuck around for the first quarter of the Richwoods/East Peoria game. This was the final game for East Peoria head coach Pete McGinnes, retiring as girl's basketball coach. The Raiders student section was very impessive!!!
The Richwoods crowd was extremely disappointing. The Knights are 28-3 this season, have a Division-I player in Mariah Smith, and one of the top girl's basketball programs in the state in recent years. Yet, the crowd was lacking.
During starting lineups, one of the Richwoods starters was announced wrong, which put some curious looks on everyone on the Richwoods bench. Coach Todd Hursey walked over to the scorer's table with an inquisitive look on his face.
The Metamora Casey's was unkind to Jimmie Carr in his quest to win $500,000. He'll try to hit the Lotto again when we head to Peoria Notre Dame on Tuesday night.
Game 140 Miles: 234
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