Playoff intensity, with Caleb Valko taking it hard to the hoop… (Shelli Trumbull photos)
A packed crowd, with Wiley Hesselgrave besieged by Falcon faithful…
And then … “Stop! It is I, the one who will save you from this thrilling affair! Just let me get my whistle pulled out of my ass first…” (Nanette Streubel photo)
Sadness. Deep, abiding sadness.
There was anger. “I was so mad I forgot to eat the Snicker’s bar I bought!!,” said one fan.
There was disbelief. “I have played basketball all over the world and never seen such a badly-called game,” said former Wolf hoops star Zepher Loesch.
There were three refs (their names scrawled in the score book looked like J. Washington, R. Neiffer and S. DePuy) who fled the scene of the crime as fast as their legs could carry them.
And then there was sadness.
Sadness that Wolf seniors Caleb Valko (playing with fresh stitches under his eye after taking an elbow in practice) and Drew Chan left their last ounce of strength on the court Thursday night and got bushwhacked.
Sadness that two rivals went toe-to-toe in a furious, sometimes fantastic brawl, a game of rallies, punches and counter punches, a game of dynamic plays and fiery intensity, as befits a winner-take-all playoff bout, only to have three refs drop their drawers at center court and take a dump all over the integrity of the game itself.
The score book will show that South Whidbey hit their free-throws down the stretch and held off Coupeville 56-45 to stay alive in the district playoffs.
What the score won’t show you was rally after rally by a Wolf team battling through countless injuries and bouts of illness.
Ben Etzell flying at the basket like a rabid, well, Wolf, pouring in 19 points from all angles.
Young guns Morgan Payne and Wiley Hesselgrave driving the ball up-court with intensity, dribbling under fire and directing traffic like seasoned pros.
Nick Streubel rumbling in the paint like only The Big Hurt can, rising from the floor like a beast unleashed, throwing puny Falcons in all directions as he ripped down rebound after rebound.
Joel Walstad swishing a sweet three. Aaron Trumbull returning from a nasty concussion and freaking his mom out by promptly diving on the floor for a loose ball on his first play. Anthony Bergeron and Josiah Campbell repping the future while Valko and Chan went out the way grizzled captains are supposed to, fighting until the final tick of the clock.
But it also won’t show you three smirking, pompous con men who, just when the game was at its most frenzied, its most enthralling, interjected themselves in the only way that this hallowed season of the god-awful ref could be properly capped.
It started with a foul being called on a Wolf halfway down the court from the play (at which point the three less-than-wise men had to confer and switched the foul from player to player three times, then landed back on the player farthest from the play.)
Then came the three technical fouls, the intentional/flagrant foul snafu, the numerous phantom traveling calls and the refusal to even consider calling a foul on a South Whidbey player who hit Etzell so hard in the rib cage he remained flat on his back for two minutes.
It would take a month to break down the shoddiness, the amateur hour theatrics, the criminal misuse of power. One could also ask why South Whidbey players were allowed to spend a great deal of time with their arms slung over the ref’s shoulders, talking like best buds (do the Falcons have seven captains?).
But to go that route leaves one awash in anger and sadness.
Better to focus on the positives, as Etzell rained down nine points, Streubel rejected back-to-back shots and Coupeville roared to life in the second quarter. Down by 12, they cut the lead to five, then pulled to within 30-28 midway through the third.
Then came a rain of technicals, “flagrant” fouls and bouts of giggling by one of the refs.
Down by 12 in the fourth, the Wolves rallied one last time, surging 13-5, with the highlight being a play when Streubel, surprisingly light on his feet for a 6-foot-4, 280-pound college football prospect, made off with a steal and fed Etzell, who rained down a dazzling trey.
With the lead cut to 49-45 and the Falcons on their heels, suddenly a row of lights went out, Super Bowl-style. That it was the row of lights right above the Wolf fans could have been a coincidence, or it could have been a signal to the refs, who immediately threw a tire wrench into any hopes of, oh, I don’t know, letting the players decide the game.
As the Falcons slid seven straight free-throws through the net, those in the stands tried to focus on the positives of a Wolf squad who refused to give in, refused to give up, on this night or any night this season.
But then, as we watched the departing backsides of the worst ref crew we have seen in what has been a banner year for bad refs, that was replaced with sadness.
And that plain sucks.
