WOW, WHAT A DAY FOR FREEDOM BASKETBALL AND THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS

Oh!! WHAT A DAY!!!  If you had asked anyone the night before if we would get a full schedule of games in on Finals Saturday at St Stephen’s Field House, 80% would say no way.  When I awoke in the morning and could still see my driveway, I thought to myself, “This is going to be a great day!!!!  It is GAMEDAY!!!

I got on my bath robe, jumped in the car with my dog Riley and toured the neighborhoods around Sykesville and Eldersburg….by the way, nothing better than taking a ride in the car with your dog.  The roads are clear!!! I got on the phone with league President, Steve Lyons…speed dial 2 during the regular season…and told him we are playing.  Posted on www.fablshowtime.com , ate a balanced breakfast and headed to the gym.

My good friend Rich Hillman met me there and together we prepared for the onslaught of rabid Freedom Basketball Fans.  The stands only hold 150 fans so we set up an additional 125 chairs around the gym, removed everything we could from the gym, turned on the AC and fans because we knew it was going to get hot in there today.

We also were going to spend the day adding to our $3,500 contribution to the Special Olympic of Carroll County.

The Girls 2023-24 5th and 6th Grade League Champions Fireballs

As the players, parents and coaches arrived for the first final, Girls 5 and 6^th grade, you could feel the excitement building.  Bouncing balls and laughter were soon replaced with chats of “Let’s Go Fireballs” and loud roars as this defensive battle got underway.  The Bolts, coached by Emily Bush came out strong with Mackenzie Bush scoring early as they took a 4-2 lead after the first 9 minutes.

Both defenses continued to play tough with traps and steals as points became hard to come by.  Piper Richards came up big for the Bolts with 4 points in the 2^nd period but Coach Michael Krage’s Fireballs answered with buckets of their own to close the gap to 9-6 at the intermission.

The 3^rd quarter was more like two hockey teams exchanging turnovers as no points were scored.  9 to 6 would take us to the 4^th quarter.

When a team wins a championship, there is always a hero…someone who steps up at just the right time to meet destiny.  This is one of those times.  Victoria Wheeler scored early in the 4^th extending the lead to 11-6 with 5 minutes to go.  The outcome seemed inevitable and then Kavya Gahlawat ripped the lid off of the basket and dropped in three buckets, including one late in the contest to go home win a 12-11 championship win.  Congratulations to the players, coaches and fans for a great season.  It is too bad anyone had to lose this game.

BTW, our first group of the day contributed $96 to the Special Olympics to raise our total to $3,596.

So, there was some miscommunication on the 7/8/9 final so I have no exciting basketball news to report but I can say that even without a game, this group raised an additional $28 to bring our total to $3,624.  We were on our way to our goal of breaking $4,000.

The Boys 2023-24 5th and 6th Grade B Tournament Champions Bananas

The first 5/6 boy’s Final pitted the upstart Bananas, coached by Terry Janes against the tenacious Gators (I like taters better but it didn’t stick) coached by Emily Bush.  In the first quarter, the Bananas offense proved to be to “slippery” (sorry) for the Gators to handle as they jumped out to an early 10-2 lead led by Joshua Janes who scored 10 of his game high 14 points in the opening quarter points.  The grey team, led by Aeson Kellogg and Victor Cataldi with 4 points each in the quarter, clawed their way back into the game early in the 2^nd period closing the gap to 4 points.  The Bananas answered with Tanner Pitman and Brady Terpstra converting two field goals each to get the lead back to 8 at the intermission.

Coach Bush implored her players to dig deeper in the third as they made another run that was repelled by the yellow team and when the dust cleared, they were down 30-18 with only 9:00 left in the season.  There seems to be a lid on the basket as so many shots got up onto the rim and nothing seemed to fall.

While a comfortable lead of 12 points is a great luxury going into the 4^th quarter, Coach Terry Janes’ experience told him otherwise.  As Tanner Pittman, Matt Grimes, Joshua Janes, Logan Prietz and Brady Terpstra (clearly the five coolest names in the league) took the floor for the Bananas, the never quit Gators sent Dominic Bouvier, Caden Bush, Arson Kellogg, Griffin Heinrich and Neil Patel to meet the challenge.

Neil Patel (10 pts in the game) seemed to take over the game as the Gators marshalled their forces to make a final run at it.  Heinrich joined in with a basket and Caden Bush put up 3 of his 5 for the game as Coach Janes boys held off the final run to win, going away, 37-29.  Along with Janes game high 14 points, Pittman added 7 and Terpstra added 6 for the new champs.  Patel led his team along with Kellogg with 6, Bush with 5 and Cataldi with 4 in a losing effort.

This group of fans raised $114 to raise our totals for the Special Olympics to $3,738.  Getting closer!!!

The Boys 2023-24 5th and 6th Grade A Champions Little Green Men

One of the great things about Freedom Basketball at St. Stephen’s and a full schedule, it doesn’t take to many games until you have a “barnburner”.  The second 5/6 Boy’s final turned out to be just that.

This game pitted the undersized but really fast Little Green Men, coached by Bill Wilson against the confident and powerful Red Devils, coached by Mike O’Neill.  As the commissioner of the Senior Boys League, I can’t wait to have these guys coaching in the top division.

Anyway, as with the previous games of the day, both teams came out nervous and shots were not going in.  Maybe it was the new court, the 92 foot run from end to end or just nerves but, at the end of the 1^st, the score was tied 6 to 6 and at the half, the Red Devils held a commanding 12-11 lead with everything on the line.  Listening to both coaches instruct their boys at the half was impressive, fun to watch for any fan.

The Little Green Men (LGM) came out firing in the third led by one of the smallest but surely the fastest players on the court, Domenic Cardile who lit up the scoreboard for 10 points, including two 3 point shots in the quarter to take a 24-21 lead into the 4^th quarter.

A little about Cardile and the day he had.  He scored 17 points, 3^rd highest total only bested by Luke Petroski who had 18 in the 7/8 championship and Seth Jacobs who had 19 point while helping his team Wolfe win the senior boys championship.  The three made three point shots led all shooters in the gym today.  Sweet effort dude!!!

Going into the 4^th with a one possession lead means it is anyone’s game.  LGM came out firing as the Red Devils seemed to be experiencing a “cold day” (see what I did there?) extending their lead as the intensity grew with under a 2 minutes to go.  The Devils were desperately searching for an open three and both Sean Johnson (7 pts) and Colton Matthews (7pts) converted to tie the game and send it to OVERTIME!!!  In this league, overtime is sudden death.  The boys would jump center.

The Red Devils sent Silas Sperb, Colby Gatzke (team high 11 pts), Sean Johnson, Luke Martin (4 pts) and Nate Spangentha out to meet the LGM’s Griffin Lewis (4 pts), Owen Guilfoyle (7 pts), Colin Peters, Blake Peters (3 pts) and Domenic Cardile to jump at center court to start the overtime.  Keep in mind that both teams had 5 fouls and were in the bonus, meaning that any foul puts a shooter on the free throw line.

The jump ball was controlled by the LGM and Cardile dropped his shoulder and drove to the right wing and was fouled.  As he towed the line, thinking about the 50 free throws he had to make in his driveway every day (just reminiscing about my childhood) before he could stop practicing, he went through his pre shot routine and calmly drained the first to clinch the 2023-24 5^th and 6^th Grade League Championship.

This group raised $129 for the Special Olympics beating the last game to bring the total to $3,867.

The Boys 2023-24 Junior Champions Team Brown

So, there were concerns when moving the championship games to St. Stephens about capacity.  Well, when the crowds crossed over between the 5^th and 6^th Grade game and the Junior Boys game, we saw an overly packed house.  Estimates are that we had over 450 people at or inside the gym at that time.

Once the awards were done and the young players and their fans cleared the bleachers, we were able to find a seat for everyone for the most exciting game of the day.  Coach Tom Brown and his white team earned their way to the finals by beating the green team in a hard fought 25-18 defensive struggle.  Coach Petroski earned his way into the final beating the neon green team 52-42 on the back of maybe the performance of the year by Luke Petroski who scored 33 points in the win.  How could Brown, who only scored 25 points in their last game, keep up with the high powered offense of Petroski.  I think the key may have been in the 42 points that blue gave up in the Final Four game.

To no one’s surprise, blue jumped out to an early lead with all of their starting five, Will Bowers (5 pts for the game), Covin Hill (3 pts), Tyler Dierker (4 pts), Avery Hill (2 pts) and Luke Petroski (game high 18 points) scoring.  Brown called a quick time out and was able to close the gap to 12-9 after the first quarter.  Then the white team did what they do best in the 2^nd quarter.  They played defense holding Petroski’s boys to a single free throw while taking a 16-13 lead into the intermission.  Brown had four players, Berkley Shamer (9 pts of the game), Joey Falise (5 pts) Jimmy McLaughlin (10 pts) and Owen Ruch (team high 11 points) score in the half.

Both teams scored 8 points in the 3^rd making the score 24-21 with 9 incredible minutes to go.  Shamer and Ruch took over in the 4^th extending the lead to 6 points with about 50 ticks left on the clock.  Petroski brought the ball up as blue ran their offense.  They swung the ball around the perimeter and back to Petroski for a contested three that he buried to close to within three points with 20 seconds to go.  The blue team fouled to send Brown to the line.  Free throws win championships and one made shot would do just that but the player shooting missed both and Blue rebounded and ran the break but pulled up to set the offense.  They found Petroski open one the right wing and he went up for a three.  A defender flashed out and went for the block and fouled number 10 sending him to the line with 4.6 seconds to go.  Three free made throws likely send this game into overtime.  Luke stood at the foul line and drained the first two, nothing but net.  Brown called his final timeout seemingly to ice Petroski and to make sure his boys got the rebound if there was a miss.

A hush fell over the crowd as Luke Petroski released the shot.  It caromed off the rim, Brown got the rebound and the game was over 35-34.  Now I would like to state the obvious.  Great game, great effort by both teams.  As I have been known to do in the past, quoting great American poets….Katie Perry once said “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.  Correction!!! I’ve been bombarded with corrections….It’s Kelly Clarkson not Katie Perry.  OK, who is the quote from?  “Don’t kill me, I’m just the piano player”?

The most important point is that Luke Petroski put up 50 Points in two games.  Hardly anything to hang your head about.

Final point, what a pleasure to have all of these great players, coaches and fans in our house.

This session added $148 to our count making the total $4,015….we beat $4,000!!!!

The 2023-24 Senior Boys Champions Wolfe

Now for the marquee matchup of the day.  The 5^th seed Wolfe team is taking on the 2^nd seed Matthews squad.  These teams met in game 5 right before Christmas and Matthews got the best of Wolfe 38-32 in a good defensive battle.  Matthews is coming in the hotter team having won 11 of their last 12 games and after the shocking upset of top seed McCain, they are the favorites as this game begins.

Both teams start with 9 players and are evenly matched from the opening jump.  Seth Jacobs took matters into his own hands in the first lighting up the scoreboard for 11 of his game high, tournament high 19 points to help the purple team jump out to an early 15-12 lead.  Going into the second, brady Fitzpatrick had different plans for the pink team scoring 8 of his team high 14 points to give Matthews a commanding 28-23 margin at the half.

Former FABL Showtime and now coach Gerald Matthews could be heard imploring his players at halftime to stay focused and do what you do best while 11 year coach Brian Wolfe and son Jon, also a former FABL Showtime stand out, were coaching up their boys encouraging no easy shots on defense and to crash the boards.  In the third quarter, they did just that.  Purple held Pink to 4 points mostly on abysmal free throw shooting as Matthew’s boys went 2 for 8 from the charity stripe.  Free throws and layups win championships…I’m just sayin’.  All five players for purple scored in the 3^rd including Sam Clarke (9 pts for the game), Grant Hinton (3 pts), Cameron Shelley (7 pts), Hassan Yousafzai (5 pts) and Trent Long (6 pts) giving Wolfe a 35-32 lead with 9 minutes to play.

So, I will say it again…free throws win championships.  That’s all I have to say about that.  Wolfe opened the 4^th with a quick 3 point shot by Shelley and a couple of made free throws by Hunter Elrod (3pts) to extend the lead to 8 with 6:00 to play.  Matthews had to start fouling and using his timeout to get back into the game.  Usually in this league that is sound strategy.  Not this time.  Wolfe went 11 for 16 from the line including 5 for 6 from Jacobs to win the game going away 52-40.

Along with Fitzpatrick’s 14 points, Ethan Long scored 6, Ryan Bauer scored 5 and Andrew Nelson and Vedant Bangoria scored 4 each in the loss for Matthews team.

In winning the championship, Wolfes and their boys finished the season 16-15.  Congratulations to both teams on a great season.

So the fans at the final stepped up and donated $160 making our final total donation to Special Olympics of Carroll County $4,175.32.  WOW, WOW, WOW!!!!

Senior League Commissioner Steve Sinnott with Special Olympics Representatives Toby Liska, Jess Hossler and Jordan Peretta

Our major donors included:

• Saint John’s Properties
• ACNB Bank
• Basta Pasta
• Hutchinson’s Flowers
• Century Home Inspections
• MOJO Art and Image

NEWS FLASH!!!!!   A new and anonymous donor just came in with a donation of $500 driving our total to $4,675.32!!!  My math tells me that we are only $324.68 short of our $5,000 goal.  If you would like to make a donation, we can be reach at fablshowtime@outlook.com or you can Venmo us at @century-1, just put Special Olympics in the comments box.

Thanks again to all of the parents, volunteers and especially the players for a great season.