2006 Halloween HoopBuster~

Coach Bunyan from Beggs requested a venue change due to some OSSAA "rules" concerns, and forced the Celtics to battle Edmond Santa Fe, or for this tournament known as MY BIG MOMMAS KITCHEN, in the smaller gym at Central High School.

The athletic Edmond athletes were more than a formidable foe against the Celtic IRON MAN Five consisting of Matt Reynolds (Kelley HS), Nick Harris (BTW HS), Steven Smith, Brock Morton & Alan Santos of Holland Hall HS. The CELTICS were short two SCHOLAR hoopers {Robert Aery (HH HS) & Tyler Thalken (BK HS)} who were taking their SAT College admittance tests. The 12:40 pm tipoff didn't quite mesh with the five hour test, and neither player was able to make to the game.

Edmond Santa Fe took control early and held a 9 point lead when Steven Smith went down the wrong way on his ankle. The Celtics were forced to play with four men, and surprisingly not only held their own, but actually trimmed the MY BIG MOMMA'S KITCHEN lead down to 2 points. Tremendous effort & execution by all four Celtics provided Smith time to ice his ankle and regroup.

During the 2nd half, Smith came up with key rebounds to support Harris on the inside; Morton, Reynolds and Santos played solid and the Celtics somehow opened up a 7 point lead with about 7 minutes left in the game.

Reynolds comined 3 pt shooting with strong drives to the hole to key our offense. Harris added inside strength and deft inside passing to his solid interior defense and rebounding.

The Edmond Santa Fe coach was slapped with a technical foul, and in further discussion with Referee Holdman was assessed a second technical foul. With four free throws coming and then getting the ball out of bounds, I felt it was definitely a turning point in the game.

As it turned out, the Coach took the game out of the hands of his talented players, and the game was forfeited at that point. Although we had the lead and the momentum the game, there were 7 minutes left in the game, and it was far from decided at that point. I felt fine in receiving the gift from my opposing coach. Our five players were pretty gassed and had expended enormous amounts of energy up to that point.

As we shook hands with Big Momma's players, I told each of them I was sorry they didn't get to finish the game. It's too bad they drove a 100 miles to play in a basketball tournament, and then the game was decided by their Coach's attitude, as opposed to the players on-court performance.

It was a superlative performance by the five Celtics, and a gutty effort by Smith just to come back and play a solid 2nd half with his twisted ankle. Our reward? A Sunday morning matchup with defending 5A State Champion Central Braves.