When I head into a Gymnasium at any level I don’t know what I will write about on that night. Last night 🌙 on The Hill was no different. I knew that the two best teams in the Three Rivers District would be playing and that it should be highly entertaining basketball 🏀. I was already smiling from watching Kayla Young in the first half and CC Mitchell’s impressive fourth quarter so the night was promising.
I have been blessed with the amount of Women’s / Ladies / Girls Hoops that I covered over the decades. Doubly blessed with the individuals that I’ve witnessed play the game up close. Growing up in Tidewater, Virginia in the shadow of Old Dominion University I cut my teeth on the game watching Nancy Lieberman play for the Monarchs. What a great four years that turned out to be!
Fast forward to getting to see Stewie play for Geno and then later much more upclose and personal when she was drafted by our Seattle Storm.
But my favorite female athlete of all time came to Seattle as a 5’6 teenager and won me over during her time with the University of Washington Huskies. Kelsey Plum sits at the top of my Basketball totem pole for sure and I don’t see that ever changing. Circling back to the Gym last night and the efforts of Alyssa Ervin. I am a HUGE fan of this impressive young Lady but when you are spending every spare minute you have on a sight were you want every Student Athlete to be treated equally you can’t focus on anyone individual.
Last night Ervin was once again putting on a clinic against the Cougars and went into the break with 23 points. Unlike other nights lately when the outcome wasn’t in doubt we were only leading 33-24. I was pretty sure that Ervin would get to play the full 32 minutes against the Cougars.
Back on February 25th, 2017 UW was set to host the Utah Utes in a game that the desperately needed to win. Plum was fifty some points from passing Jackie Styles as the All-Time scoring leader in NCAA Women’s Basketball history. Plum dropped 57 points that afternoon in leading the Huskies to a narrow 84-77 victory. Not one shot was taken that wasn’t needed and the margin of victory ballooned in the final seconds. Getting to watch her break the record and get us the win at the same time was incredible. At the same time someone not in the building that day would look at the box score and not understand what took place.
Ervin dropped another 11 in a somewhat quiet manner to push the number to 34 and I started doing the math. The score was 50-39 and Alleghany wasn’t going to go away. They would need to foul late and we were looking at school history. Ervin was set to hang Half a Hundy (50 points) and just like with Plum, her team was going to need everyone of them.
Ervin was sitting at 42 points as the game headed into crunch time. The basket that took her to 42 was her most impressive of the night as she grabbed an airball and while in the air put up a shot with her back to the goal.
I was down right giddy about what I was sure was about to happen but then the ref blew his whistle and called her fifth foul on her. Just like that, the Hollywood ending was gone.
What followed was a great story in itself (written a few posts back) as Katie Lam took the baton from Ervin and as Coach Motley said – ” Katie took us to the House”.
I will wrap this up by saying this about our Coach and his Coach on the floor. Tonight we will be hosting a very weak Glenvar team that is full of nice kids that simply aren’t very talented at Basketball. If Motley wanted to leave her in the game I’m pretty sure she would drop 80 without breaking a sweat.
I love the fact that not going to happen because Motley wouldn’t let it happen.
The old line about the person that could hold down Michael Jordan’s scoring was Dean Smith fits here. I love that part of who are Coach is.
It’s kind of ironic that I will be the one doing the starting lineups tonight for the games because here’s my closing thought – if there was ever a night to not taunt a team its the Girls game with Glenvar. Show up and cheer your hearts out for an impressive group of young Ladies and then go at it for the Boys 👦 game afterwards.
Miss Ervin – Thank you for the show over the last few years and here’s to going out in style !
A.S.P.N on The Hill 