I can not help it.  I need an answer to a couple questions that have been burning since the boys and girls game last night.  From the boys game, when to players get into it, not fighting, but talking, getting in each others face, and one does the right thing and walks away, but the other continues talking and follows the other player.  Why, and I really want an answer, why would a ref jump all over the player walking away from the confrontation and say absolutely nothing to the player that is still talking smack following him?  And from the girls game, when a fight starts to break out right in front of a ref, pushing, shoving, and the ref just stands there, doing nothing, why do you not get in there and separate the players.  You allow punches to get thrown or a kid get hurt, you are responsible.  You are supposed to ensure the safety of the athletes during the game, ensure that it does not get to rough or out of hand.  Why you would just stand there and watch the pushing and shoving instead of stopping it before it came to that point is beyond understanding.  I thought it was obvious in both games by how rough you were allowing it to get that something was going to give.  You blew it.  Period.  For officials that feel my blasting of the refs is unfair, when you are not working a game, and have nothing else to do, come and watch a Eagle River Varsity basketball game.  Then give me a hard time when you read what I have to say.

Now, onto the game.  Sickness is still making its way through the Wolves locker room.  Junior Kelechi Madubuko missed a practice this week, and came off the bench.  You could tell by looking at him he was not 100% and was getting winded pretty quickly, but that did not stop Kelechi from providing some good highlights.  Eagle River looked pretty good even though South jumped out to a lead right off the bat.  What really kept the Wolves out of the game in the first half were the avoidable turnovers.  Trying to force passes to teammates with three South players in the way, missing the obvious open perimeter players and not blocking out.  Court awareness is key, and there were times that it appeared that awareness was missing.

Then the 4th quarter started.  If the Wolves would play every game like they played South in the 4th quarter, they would be undefeated this year.  South honestly had no answer for the offense the Wolves brought into the 4th quarter.  If there would have been 5 more minutes, Eagle River could have pulled out the win, or, if this onslaught would have happened 5 minutes earlier in the second half.  Seniors Nate Yaw and Dominic Young showed that they wanted to win, both putting up double doubles, but it was too little, too late.

Yaw finished the night with 18 points and 12 rebounds and added 6 assists.  It is honestly my belief that if Yaw would have have been healthy all season long, he has the ability to have put up double doubles and triple doubles every single night and be in the running for the Alaska State Player of the year.  But it is not Yaw alone that would have elevated him to POY status.

Seniors Dominic Young (who lead all scorers with 28 points and 10 rebounds), Kyle Taylor, Branden Viotto, Madubuko, and Steven Carlos are all the reasons that the Eagle River Wolves have the potential to win and could have elevated Yaw to the state player of the year level.  But, hindsight is 20/20 and we still have a week of ball to go in the regular season.  Hopefully the Wolves will put the intensity we saw last night in the 4th quarter into the rest of the season and head into the CIC tournament on a terror.  Lets start it up tonight with a non conference game against Lathrop at the Wolves Den!

Oh…one more question…what was up with the pink shoes?