Final Wrap Up

I found that the most difficult thing in writing a weekly column is to either have too little to say or too much.

Last week’s column though being about the right length didn’t tell the whole story that needed to be told. So this week I will try to meet that goal.

First off I didn’t mention the girls’ team that had a very successful season. They once again made the round of 16 but came up just a bit short in their game against St. George’s.

They had the opportunity to pull off the upset but sometimes a team works so hard at one end of the court (defense) they have problems on the other end of the court (offense).

Having had some very sound defensive basketball coaches I remember them saying, “Rest on offense, not on defense.”

In the fourth quarter of any game that is on the line it is hard to get any rest and that can spell trouble when a key basket or free throw is needed. So the girls came up three points shy of making it to the arena, which is a shame.

Next year they will have 80 percent of their starters returning and some key players that earned valuable minutes during the season.

Senior Madison Harder will be graduating and her height and defensive toughness will be missed. She had a great two years as a varsity player and her role will need to be filled by someone or maybe two people that won’t back down as defensive specialists and rebounders.

It is a tough job but necessary for successful seasons to come.

Finally I want to revisit the boys’ team. This is one club that reminds me a lot of the team that I played on my senior year 46 years ago. Bear with me while we reminisce.

Our team didn’t have nine seniors we only had two. Like this year’s team one of them was the Superintendent’s son who had moved only a year before.

We also had a player move to town my senior year. Both of these guys were our two leading scorers. So we had two starters that had been pretty good players at their previous schools.

We weren’t lucky enough to have a sixth man come to Ritzville or a foreign exchange student from Austria but we sure could have used a couple more guys with good experience.

Wyatt Roettger, Dylan Becker, Nick Fleming and Carlos Vuilleumier were very important to the success of this team.

Whether during a game or practice the need to be pushed is a big part of a successful season. It doesn’t matter how many years these boys attended school here they are Broncos through and through.

Some of the other similarities the two teams had were: we both played 31 games (we finished 17-14 and this year’s team was 19-12); not many fans thought either team would be playing at the state tournament.

Both teams lost in the district tournament to the eventual state champion. We both knocked out the Liberty Lancers in a loser out game when Liberty entered the post season as the second seeded team from the league, although we beat the Lancers by one and this year’s team won by 21.

The tournament format is a bit different as we played in a four day 16 team tournament and this year’s team had to win a loser out winner go on game the Saturday before trimming the 16 teams to 8.

Our first game at state was against a 26-2 team with a guy that averaged 26 points a game, while this year’s Broncos team played a team that was 23-2 with a guy averaging close to 22 a game.

Both Broncos teams won their first game with tough defense and great team play.

Both teams went 2-2 in the tournament and both teams would play the pretournament number one rated team on Saturday for placing.

Our team finished seventh with eight teams placing and this year’s club finished fifth with six teams earning trophies.

In 1970, the Ritzville Bronco fans filled the gyms and the Spokane Coliseum seats for every game we played and we felt like we were something very special.

In 2016, the Lind, Ritzville and Sprague fans followed this team and it too was a special moment for these young athletes.

All of the hard work, line drills, defensive slides, rebounding drills, free throws, late practices and long bus rides are tough for anyone to endure but for these young Broncos it was all worth it in the end and the memories will last a lifetime.

Trust me!