After shooting high school girls varsity hoops Monday, hockey Tuesday, the CU/CSU basketball game in Boulder Wednesday (and running up to Boulder Thursday morning to get my laptop power cable that I left in the media room the night before), I was all set for the final two days of the Ralston Valley Mustangs Round Up basketball tournament on Thursday and Friday. 8 teams were to be at RV starting at about 3:30pm. Adams City, Rock Canyon, Arvada West, Rangeview, Montbello, Fairview, Valor Christian, and host Ralston Valley. 8 games in two days is a little much for me to recap, so let me talk about my set up some, and my experiences through the two days.
On day one (actually day 3 of the tournament, as the other two days of games took place earlier in the week), I showed up at RV at a little after 2pm to look over the gym and set up my lights. I had shot volleyball at RV before, but I was told there were two gyms. A small gym and a large gym. The volleyball game was in a gym that was small in my opinion, so I figured it was the small gym. I was wrong. This gym, about half the size of Eagle River’s gym in Alaska, and about a third of the size of the gym we had at Roosevelt in Seattle, was the large gym.
On one side of the gym there are bleachers that stop about 12 feet from the wall, and on the other side of the court the bleachers go almost to the wall. On the other half, one side has the same 12 foot gap, and the other side the bleachers go all the way to the wall. On this half, there is a upper bleacher area on the end line and this is where I wanted to set my lights, but the cheer team was having practice in this area, and my power cords would have to be strung right through where they were tumbling. So, I ran out to my car and got my light stands and set them up on the tops of the bleachers. I had my sports reflectors on, and they were too much for this area, but firing the strobes direct allowed me to shoot at ISO’s around 400, but gave me some nasty shadows.
The staff at RV was awesome, and bent over backwards for me. They kept asking me if I needed anything, and made things happen for me. I needed about 5 feet more extension cable for one of my lights, and within 5 minutes a maintenance guy came over and handed me a extension cord. It was great. So, my lights were secured to to sides of the bleachers at the top, and I was ready for basketball.
Game one had Rock Canyon and Adams City. Adams City has talent, but the players looked like they had never played organized ball before. No picks, no screens, no give and goes, just kept passing the ball around the perimeter until one of them would take a NBA distance three. Most of their scoring were off of turnovers or the rare breakdown in the Rock Canyon defense. Rock Canyon just dominated them.
The second game had Arvada West and Fairview facing off. Fairview handled A-West pretty well. The biggest thing I saw from A-West was that they were heavy on guards, but limited on forwards, and centers. In fact, it appeared that they had zero post players, which is not going to do them well as the season goes on. They have a couple good outside players. One player has a nice jump shot from 10 feet and beyond, and the other penetrates quite well, but with no power rebounder, it will be a long season.
Game three had Rangeview facing off against the host Ralston Valley team. Rangeview was full of talent. But one player really stood out. Jeremiah Paige. He just had a smooth game. I was fully expecting him to take the game over at any time. I would talk about Ralston Valley’s best player, #20, but they have not uploaded their rosters to MaxPreps yet. He was a very good inside and outside player. Someone who could hit a three, but attack the rim too.
Game four was exciting between Valor Christian and Montbello. Valor is a refined non flashy team. Kind of reminded me of Kentucky back in the Rick Pitino days. A lot of three’s. Montbello, on the other hand, reminded me of a street ball team. A lot of great, individual talent, that at times would work together, but most of the time was too scrappy to get any set plays run. To anxious to wait for the screen, or trying those big play NBA passes that would end up as turnovers. In the first half, Valor was the clear winner. Coming out of halftime, Montbello looked defeated, dragging their feet, no energy. But when the whistle blew, they were playing like another team. They ended up taking the game to double overtime before Valor would finally pull away to win.
On Friday I showed up a little after 2pm, and was able to set my lights up in the upper bleacher area. I also brought my standard reflectors which gave me much nicer light (the first 4 photos bellow are with lights on the bleachers with the sports reflectors, the last 4 are shots with the lights about 10 feet higher, with the standard reflectors. While still direct, it was a much better quality light.
The first game on Friday had Arvada West playing Adams City. Adams City looked much better this game, but still was not able to beat A-West. The second game was Rock Canyon and Fairview. Rock Canyon was able to beat Fairview by 1 with a final score of 61-60. The third game had host Ralston Valley taking on Montbello. Montbello built up a big lead in the 1st half, and while RV took over in the second half, they could not make that final push and Montbello was able to hand on for the win.
The championship game was a joke. It had two great teams, two good friends in Rangeviews Jeremiah Paige and Valors (Rosters not uploaded). A refined team with a great inside game against a classic team with a great outside game. What made it a joke was one official. I do not know if he had a grudge against the teams, or had a bad day, but the second he stepped foot on the court he made everyone else miserable. In the first quarter he threatened to give anyone a technical who made one comment about a ref’s call. He followed players around who did not agree with a call but tried to walk away from him, and he was baiting them into talking to him just so he could assert his authority. He was a jerk and he cost Rangeview the game. He gave a player a technical, the coach asked to explain what he did, and all he would say from across the gym that he was being unsportsmen like. If anyone was unsportsman, it was this official. It really could have been a phenomenal game. To bad it got ruined by one official.
Anyway, here are the photos. Just one per game, so the see more, please visit your team pages at MaxPreps.
