One of the weirdest nights for me.  I headed over to Standley Lake high school.  I was sure it was for the Standley Lake and Arvada West boys game, but when I got there I figured out quickly that I was wrong.  The girls from Dakota Ridge were there for the game.  Double checking my schedule I miss read the schedule and saw that Friday was the night that Arvada West is going to be at Standley Lake.  But there was no other game I would have covered Tuesday night, so, that was ok.

I go in and set up my strobes.  I know this gym.  It is dark and small, so I need to use my Sports Reflectors and mount the strobes as high as possible.  One side of the gym does not have an accessible power outlet, so I have to use by battery pack for one side, and there is no place to clamp my light on that same side, so I have to use a light stand.

I get everything up and ready, tweaked to give me the best possible exposure and the Standley Lake trainer comes over and tells me the Dakota Ridge coach does not want the lights.  So, in my best professional hat I walk over to the coach and sit down next to her and try to explain to her that this is the location that the lights need to be in.  She is dead set on me not using my strobes because they are pointing directly at her bench.  I try to explain that the strobes will not be noticed by anyone once the game starts and she is just getting madder and madder at me.  Then someone in the stands takes a photo with a flash and she starts to go off on that flash until I tell her that was someone else and I had no control over other people with cameras.  She finally told me that she had an injured player who was recovering from a concussion.  It was bad enough that she had to wear ear plugs because the music and crowd were too loud and gave her a head ache.  I was shocked.  I have had concussions before and if it is still bad enough that she needs earplugs, she should not even have been there.  You can not control every one with a flash.  But I made a concession and offered to bounce the strobes so they were not directly pointed at her bench.  She was ok with this, but I wish she would have said something a lot sooner.  With about 5 minutes left before the game started, I am rushing around trying to change my strobes from a direct set up to a bounce set up, and pointing for bounce is not always as easy as direct strobing.  So, in the photos bellow you will see the exposure and colors change some as I was tweaking the strobes all evening.

In the game one of the weirdest things happened that I had ever seen.  There was a technical foul on a Standley Lake player, not even sure what it was about, but then later in the game out of the blue to me the Standley Lake coach was tossed from the game.  The look on her face told me that she had no clue that she was going to be tossed.  Watching the game, it seemed to me that the ref’s were determined to make sure Standley Lake was not going to win this game, but even fighting the refs, and without their head coach, they were able to pull it off.

Gerry Valerio, senior writer for Maxpreps was in attendance at the game, his daughter plays for Dakota Ridge (look for #2) and we chatted some at halftime.

Standley Lake won the game 49-44 but neither team has uploaded their stats so I can not do a good recap of the game for you.  So, enjoy the photos.

In the photo above, you can see how small the Dakota Ridge point guard was compared to the Standley Lake team.

Just a fun photo above.

To view and purchase photos from this game please visit Maxpreps.