The good news was, the metal detectors worked at Proviso East last night. The man behind it, among many milling about on both sides of it, kept calling out to us on the other side, “Single file, folks. Single file.” And hats off, not to anyone in particular but to the goal of civility in closed places.
The bad news was, the Huskies lost decisively to the Dolphins of Whitney Young. As Fenwick had seen the writing on the wall after two, maybe three quarters, but wouldn’t believe it but bounced back to provide excitement for the finish, so did OPRF come back from nowhere at the end, giving us something to cheer about.
But Shumpert the Man fouled out late in the 4th. He had put the Friars away almost by himself on Friday at OPRF, but this time he got flummoxed by better players who seemed, truth to tell, better coached. Too often in the first half, after Young’s 17–0 run following OPRF’s opening 7–0 run (!), the Young team drew the whole damn OPRF team to the ball carrier, leaving the guy in corner or even closer to take his shot unmolested on the pass.
The Young team also too often spread the OPRF field, biding time for their opening, leaving lots of room in the middle.
Anyhow, nobody loafed, and the season ended not with a whimper but with feverish, if not successful, effort.
Meanwhile, long past metal detection at the entrance, we got another slice of life at P-East with the nutty announcer at courtside who regularly, maddeningly served up the latest for the severely sight-impaired among us for whom the two big, brightly lit scoreboards, one at each end of the generously proportioned gym were inadequate.
We all were sight-impaired in his book; he gave us the score and time remaining at every opportunity, and in dramatic fashion. He also now and then told us who was entering the game as subs — but at least once assigned a number 31 to the Young team, which had none, and another time told us in dramatic fashion which team had the ball after a time-out, getting this wrong too.
He was like the barking dog that keeps you awake at night but stops now and then to catch his breath, at which time you doze off, forgetting about him completely. But then he starts again. So we could watch this game and forget about him periodically. But then he’d start again.
