Slow start to 3rd quarter, kinda ugly

FHS closed out the half with a 6-0 run. Tranchell hit a jumper on the baseline to give the team the lead back then after Hutcherson missed a 3 (why’s the big man even taking them for Milton?) Baptiste hooked up Lavin down low for an up-and-under. Lavin then came up with a steal with 50 seconds left that led to a sweet pull-up jumper by Baptiste with 38 ticks to go. Both teams missed on their last attempts which leaves us where we stand.

I think both sides were a little overwhelmed by the moment at the start. They’re settling in though. FHS is doing a great job of limiting DJ Santos’ effectiveness and moving the ball around well.

Falmouth’s backups haven’t fared too well, but the starting five is doing decently. It’s a slugfest and it’s going to go down to the wire. There aren’t going to be any 37-point blowouts tonight.

Coach Lundy called timeout after Milton took its first lead since 4-2. FHS playing great defense, but the offense is bogging down a little right now. Lavin is trying a little too hard against Hutcherson, but overall I’d say the battle is even right now.

14-13 Falmouth, offensively sloppy on both ends really

12-6 Falmouth

Big shot by Trevor Andrews to close out the quarter.

Can I interest you in a live blog of the MIAA Div 2 south finals? I thought so.

I’m sitting a short jumper behind the baseline watching Milton warm up. They’re definitely an athletic looking crew, and I know that they’re going to be pushing the pace. How good they really are? Well, we’ll see. They did go 16-4, and they play in the Bay State League, so they’re certainly not going to be pushovers.

Prediction? I’d sound like way too much of a homer if I made a prediction. All I know is this, when the school year started, the team I said I was most excited about was the basketball team — more than football or hockey. I said then that I thought that they’d be capable of winning the state.

To win the state, you have to win the region first. Tonight’s the Elite Eight game and there’s a Final Four berth on the line. If that’s not enough to get you excited then you don’t love hoops.

I’ll be updating this throughout the game so check back liberally. Game time is nine minutes two seconds away.

It’s Tuesday evening and I’m waiting for Lyra to get home from an impromptu trip to her mom’s for dinner with the kids. It’s just past 10 PM and I’ve waited for her to come home to watch this week’s mind-bending episode of “Lost.”

So while I wait for her, I’m channel surfing. The Bruins game just ended and right now I’m on the Celtics game, and they’re about to defeat Detroit. During the commercials I happened upon the MLB Network and the show said that it had highlights of the 1975 World Series. While the Red Sox lost that one, I can handle it emotionally. I was alive, but only a toddler, so I don’t have firsthand memories of the pain. And, despite the loss, the Sox and Carlton Fisk gave us the one of the greatest baseball moments of all time with his homer just inside the foul pole. It’s still fun to watch him wave that ball to stay fair.

But when I turned on the show, it wasn’t 1975 that was on. It was 1986. That’s a different story altogether.

Not only was it 1986, but of course, it was Game Six. Sox up 3-2 in games. Dave Henderson goes deep in the 10th. The Sox tack on another for a 5-3 lead. Calvin Schiraldi retires the first two men on little cans of corn to left and then center.

Bob Costas started to talk about the cellophane being put over the lockers. Mrs. Yawkey was standing next to the trophy.

I changed the channel. We all know what happens from there, and there’s no reason to relive it ever again. As soon as I saw Billy Buckner on the screen I went back to the Celtics.

That’s enough.

I know it shouldn’t matter any more. The Sox won in 2004. The Sox won in 2007. Heck, the team looks strong, it could do it again in 2010 (of course that remains to be seen, and I’ll only believe it after they trade for Adrian Gonzalez).

The demons have been exorcised. The year 1918 is irrelevant.

But still, seeing that stuff still causes pain. I was just 13 years old, and I cried that night. It was the worst.

I remember that my parents were on vacation in Los Angeles, and I watched it alone on the floor, leaning up against an ottoman we had in the living room. I didn’t more for a long time.

Making it even worse, I had asked my mom to get me some kind of keepsake from her trip. She told me on the phone she’d picked me up a Celtics T-shirt, and of course that lifted my spirits (remember, this was the heyday of Larry Bird and the C’s had won the championship just a few months earlier).

So she got home and gave me my T-shirt. It was yellow, and purple. What the ****?

It was a Lakers shirt, that said “Beat Boston.” Not only had I had my stomach punched by the Mets a few days earlier, but on top of it my mom brings me home a Lakers shirt.

Amazingly, I’ve never been to therapy.

Losing the gold medal game was painful for the Americans, and sure it was a hit to national pride, bu that game was without a doubt one of the top sporting events I’ve witnessed in a long, long time. Even after Sid Crosby won the game for Canada in OT I wasn’t all that upset. Sure I wanted to see the USA pull off the upset, but the pride I felt for our boys overcame any bad feelings about losing.

Canada was supposed to win that gold. They came in with the best team, and were playing on their home soil. They were favored by every expert heading into the tournament to walk away with the gold. The Americans were picked to finish in the middle of the pack, out of the medals.

But the youngest team in the tournament rode a fantastic showing by the MVP, goalie Ryan Miller, and just won and won and won. They played with heart, and moxie. I saw all but one of their games, and every time they were fun to watch.

And that gold medal game was epic. The first goal for Canada was a mistake by the Americans, turning the puck over deep in their own end. They should have tried to clear the puck out around the boards, but instead opted to try to go up the middle. Turnover, goal. Early in the second they were down 2-0, and things didn’t look good.

But the US boys had a ton of heart. They came right back to pull to within one and then tied it up with just under 25 seconds to play in regulation, when my favorite player on the team, Zach Parise, banged one home from the doorstep to send it to OT.

The overtime was just starting to get into that stressful stage when Crosby ended it. He took a little feed from Jerome Iginla and beat Miller through the five-hole with a snap shot from down low. Miller didn’t have time to close up and the best player in the world became an even bigger national hero in the Great White North.

To watch the Americans shed tears afterward, and the Canadian shed tears of joy, was special. That game meant so much to both parties. It was like a do-or-die Stanley Cup game, it just couldn’t have been any bigger, or been played at a higher level. If you didn’t get goose bumps as the fans sang “Oh Canada” well, you might want to see a doctor and have him check or a pulse. It was a special moment.

Now it’s back to the grind of the NHL for those guys, where the games don’t mean nearly as much for a few months.

But we’re left with the memory of one of the best sporting events of our lifetimes. Everyone that watched that game walked away with something, even if your team only took silver.

I don’t know why, but I can’t pull myself away from curling. I still don’t quite understand the rules and I can’t believe that it’s got my rapt attention, but it does. The Winter Olympics are funny that way. If this was on all the time, I probably wouldn’t stop to watch it, but for some reason every four years it pulls me in.

But the big story of these Olympics for me has been the hockey. How is it that NBC doesn’t show these games on the main network? This has been some unreal stuff. The US-Canada game was as enjoyable for me as the Super Bowl was earlier in the month, and with hardly any commercials the tension just builds and the game has an awesome flow. It’s so much fun to watch. I can’t wait for the medal round to begin.

And the drama is off the charts. After what happened in the prelims we are guaranteed that either Canada or Russia will be on the outside looking in. There is so much pressure on Canada to rally that it’s going to be some of the best TV to watch in a long, long time.

And the US team has a legit shot to go all the way. Sure the defense looked horrible at times in the third period against the Canucks, but Ryan Miller was awesome. He’s and Brian Rafalski are the stars of the tourney so far for the Americans. And I love Zach Parise, he plays the game so hard.

Funny though that my wife is also loving the Olympics and we hardly watch any of the same stuff. While I’m all about what’s going on on the ice, she’s about the snow. She loves the skiing — oh and the ice skating, which to me is just horrible to watch. Sure they’re graceful, but to me any sport that is judged is flawed. It makes everything far too subjective and what looks good to you and me doesn’t necessarily impress the German judge.

Nah, give me the Chinesse curlers over the French ice dancers any day. It’s much more fun to watch these girls screaming while the slide down the ice with their brooms.

To quote one of my all-time favorite movies, “it’s all happening.”

Yesterday the MIAA released the pairings for the basketball tournament and today the hockey brackets will be released. If you’re a fan that means you know where to be to see your favorite team’s biggest game of the year so far. For me, it means I know where I’ll be trekking to each night.

Actually the first week doesn’t look that bad for me. With the exception of the Falmouth High girls’ basketball team all of the teams I cover will be at home for their first round games for hoops. Hockey is another story, but usually they play those games in Gallo, so it shouldn’t be that bad.

Next week is when the nuttiness will really begin. The FHS boys’ hoops team could go pretty deep, and I think the MHS boys could make a run at D4. For them, if they can make 60-percent of their free throws, they’ll challenge to win any game. They’re just not that good at the charity stripe, which is their Achilles Heel. If I had to point to a weakness on the FHS boys team it would be that they’ve struggled in games that they haven’t dominated, if that makes any sense. Close games have been tough for them and someone is going to have to channel his inner-Kobe and want the ball when it matters most. Personally I’d like to see DK Johnson take that role. He’s the senior captain, he’s a slasher that can get to the basket. It’s his team, and his year, so I think in the final three minutes he should be the one that dictates the action.

It’s funny because I really get into this stuff at this time of year. As a journalist I’m not supposed to have a real rooting interest, but I’d be lying if I told you that I don’t care what happens to these kids, and I love a good story.

Like the FHS girls, they’re all young, and they’ll be a legitimate contender to make some real noise next year. This year they’re getting their feet wet. It’d be great if they can pick up a win in the play-in game before potentially getting waxed in round two (I hate to put it like that, but the girls’ tourney is always very top heavy, and there are some machines at the top of the bracket every year. The girls tourney rarely has any paper tigers, especially at the D1 level, and I believe FHS would play New Bedford in the next round). Still for girls like Shannon Marcoux and Elizabeth Knox, the team’s go-to players for next year, and this, it will be a great learning experience and something that they can build on for the future.

Another team that really has my interest piqued is the Mashpee boys’ ice hockey team. For the level they play at, D3, they’re pretty good. They have a go-to scorer, a couple of solid role players and a solid keeper. That’s the recipe for a deep run if ever there was one. MHS/UCT will be heard from, I think.

All in all, the tournament is always great and it’s something I’m really excited about. Almost as much as the vacation I’m going to take when it’s all over.