BY CHRIS STEELE
This past Saturday, the semi finals and finals were held in the Wadsworth YMCA Fieldhouse to determine the WHS 2020 Intramural basketball champions.
Competition for the Semi-Finals commence promptly at 8 A.M. with matchups between Team Cramblett versus Team Lynn and on the other side of the red division bracket was Team Nagel versus Team Stevens. The four teams were nearly equivalent in skill, setting up the stage for two iconic matchups.
The first match between Cramblett and Lynn was a low scoring bout filled with great defense from both sides. Both teams scored only three points in the first half in this one. Team Cramblett went on to defeat Team Lynn by one point to move onto the championship but for senior Chase Rodgers, there was a lot of hype that went into the game.
“We’ve been looking forward to playing that team for a long time now and were really pumped up and motivated when we got the chance,” said Rodgers. “Although many people in the school were doubting us, we have confidence that we were able to beat them. I think we earned some respect from people after the big win.”
On the other side, a very intriguing match between Team Nagel and Team Stevens occured. Team Nagel took a quick lead of approximately six for most of the first half with Ryan Nagel, 12, hitting five three pointers in the first half alone. Stevens then came back in the second half to make it a much closer game.
“We started looking to get more layups off of steals and we ended up bringing the score back, said Adam Stevens, 12. “Overall, we just played better as a team in the second half.”
Team Stevens was up by 1 when the shared scoreboard between the two courts stopped at 17.8 seconds left for no apparent reason in the game. Due to this, Team Nagel got the ball back and senior James Harwick took a three point shot from well beyond the arc and made it with little to no time left on the clock to give his team the win by two and secure the championship appearance for his team.
“I put such a high arc on the ball that it seemed like it took forever for the ball to come in,” said Harwick. “I was so hyped when the ball went in and it felt great to give the team a win in such a close game.”
In the championship it was Team Nagel facing off against Team Cramblett. The game began with Team Cramblett taking an 8-0 lead on their opponent. For Ryan Nagel, he knew that the game was going to be a close one, but having a large deficit early did not help.
“We had all this energy coming out of the last game because of ‘the shot’ but when we went down early we all began to question what we were doing,” said Nagel. “I don’t think we were prepared to start the game like that and I think we just couldn’t recover from it.”
Team Cramblett defeated Team Nagel by six points in the end of the game marking the first championship for the team.
“It was nice to be able to win the championship because we all have been together since freshman year and we have never been able to win it all,” said Rodgers. “It just felt so nice to get the ‘ship’ and after it was all over, go out to Buehlers and have breakfast as the champs.”
