The Beginning of the Good Ole 8am/7pm Split...

I'm doing this a little backwards, the Bronte game was actually the second game and this was the first, forgive me for posting slightly out of order... So, after their thrilling last-second win, Eula was playing for a state championship on Saturday. Early, very early in the morning. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am so NOT an early riser, so shooting a game that starts at 8:30am is not my idea of fun. And, to add to that, with the start of the South by Southwest Music Festival starting, there were no rooms (well, none affordable, there was a room at the Hilton downtown for $350/ night, would love to hear about that when I turned in my expense report!), so we had to stay 30 minutes south in San Marcos. It didn't help that after getting dinner and finishing the slideshow from the Bronte game the night before I didn't get to bed until about 2:30am. So, after a nice four hour nap it was off to the game.

The team they were playing looked really good and had a really great game against their semi-final opponent. So, I didn't have really high hopes for Eula taking state. However, one of the colleagues reminded me of the Tenaha team (maybe not the same players) they were playing had lost to Roscoe two years earlier. That Tenaha team had gotten most of its points from turnovers and in transition, not from set plays and really tight defense, which is what gave Eula so much trouble in the game against Evadale two days earlier.

Well, that's exactly what happened. Eula did a good job of taking care of the ball, shot a lot better, looking like a lot of the early game jitters weren't there like what might have been a couple day earlier. Then, of course, Kainon Irons, their big man who played such a huge role all year had yet another great game. Along with the other starters shooting well, and hitting some big threes every time Tenaha tried to start making a run. It was fun to watch, I've always said my official position as a journalist is I won't openly pull for and will NEVER cheer on the sideline/baseline during a game as it's not professional, however, it's always easier to cover the winning team than the losing team.