Car Wreck; Kirtland Central Ousted By St. Pius

I apologize to all my dozens of loyal readers (if you believe the spam bots that post fake comments) for my lack of updates.

I got into a car accident on Wednesday, rendering poor Mable (my '95 Mustang) dead at the old age of 15 years.

That's created a lot of 8 a.m. phone calls with the insurance company the last several days and a maximum sleep time of five hours.

Hopefully you feel placated by Sunday's sports section, which is chock full of local copy despite a 10 p.m. deadline tonight (and four state championship basketball games, including one in Kirtland and one in Shiprock, where sports editor Darren Vaughan and I attended 7 p.m. tipoffs).

Thanks to coach Charles Kromer for providing me with a pen before the game. He seemed in a good mood after Friday's glorified scrimmage against No. 16 Santa Teresa.

The Broncos got crushed by 25 points, losing to the same team that they beat by one a few weeks ago.

KC scored six points in the first quarter and labored from the field. They scored 17 in the second only to give up 19 to St. Pius. Then they chipped the deficit to three multiple times during the third quarter, but the Sartans hit a 3 at the end of the period to stretch the lead back to eight.

That broke the Broncos, who'd used a 3-2 zone to throw St. Pius off balance and gain some traction.

The zone helped counteract the Sartans' quick guards, but coach John Zecca had to change to a man-to-man defense because St. Pius started stalling with a lead.

I thought the Broncos did a great job attacking the rim during the second half, but made just 5-of-17 free throws. DJ Frank is an admirable player and easy to enjoy as a basketball talent, but shot 3-of-9 from the line in the second half.

I saw a Kirtland administrator in the tunnel after the game berating a St. Pius player for celebrating by grabbing and hanging on the rim after the game. I didn't think the celebration was disrespectful or malicious -- I love grabbing the rim after the basketball games that I play -- but it seemed to upset the Kirtland brass.

*****

I'll stop and write more tomorrow so I don't say anything off the wall in my delusional state, but here are the team stats from tonight's game. St. Pius is listed on the left.

Turnovers: SP -- 8, KC -- 15.
2-point FG: 14-28, 15-29.
3-point FG: 5-15, 1-12
R: 23, 31
FT: 22-25, 7-20
A: 11, 6
F: 18, 22

Stay true and keep pounding,
Christopher