It seems like it was just five minutes ago that Head Coach Anthony Barnes and his team of believers were standing at 20-1, ready to take on all comers.
There had been plenty of discussion about the upcoming District Championship game with Floyd County about the concern of having an injury derail your Regional plans. The bulk of the talk was coming from the other side but it was our Davis Reitzel that ended up sprawled out on the Gymnasium floor early against Floyd County.
Fast Forward to the end of the game with the Buffaloes and the loss total had doubled from one to two. But the bigger fear was how would Reitzel heal up from a dislocated knee and could the team rally around each other long enough for the 6’3 Senior to return to action 🎬.
The news went from bad to worse when the Region pairings were announced and we landed in the #3-#6 opposite of Abingdon High School. The Falcons have a starting front court of 6’3, 6’6 and 6’9 and while Barnes has a team full of players that would run through a brick wall for him, the one thing they cannot do is grow six inches.
This group gave their Coach everything they had from start to finish but at the end of the day the fell short against a quality opponent that was literally head and shoulders taller than them.
In even in defeat the Cavaliers wouldn’t go quietly in the night. Exactly 4:00 remained in the third quarter when Reitzel entered the ball game for the first time. The team had trailed 40-27 before Bryce Smoot converted a lay-up. The mere presence of Reitzel on the floor lit up the Gym as a whole and the other four players on the court had an extra bounce in their step 🚶♂️.
Before the Falcons knew what hit them their lead was down to 40-38. Reitzel gave everything his knee would allow and the Cavs went down swinging but they couldn’t prevent the 6’9 Big Man from a series of offensive put backs and a 6’3 wingman from drilling a pair of corner 3-pointers.
The final margin was 67-52 and its worth mentioning that the team did leave 12 points at the free throw line (9/21) and they had their poorest shooting percentage from 3-point range (3-29). But those are stats and this story is about Heart ❤.
Heart ❤, as this is what the team played with and a number of us were enjoying the time around the team.
We all knew we would have to say Goodbye, just not yet.
Ethan Richardson, Paul Marshall and Jabin Talley will head across the street to the Tennis 🎾 Courts, Reitzel will head to the Soccer ⚽️ pitch and Brayden Smoot will head to the Track but we will all hold onto a Winter to Remember.
The story was magnificent, just the ending needed a little re-write ✍.
A.S.P.N on The Hill 