On Friday, February 19, the Eastlake North Rangers were defeated by the Mayfield Wildcats with a whopping score of 70-43. All season North had been struggling against the teams who can run the court well, but really? That’s a 27 point deficit, this is getting a little out of hand. Basketball is not a sport you can watch other team members carry the whole team in, it’s just not. And sadly, I think the Rangers might be putting all of their reliance on certain players. It’s only once and a while that they come together and actually play like a team, but then when they do that, they get a ridiculous amount of calls. I can’t blame the players or coaches for all of this, but I’m not sure what else they could possibly do. You cannot confuse a kid when he is playing a sport, and that’s exactly what everyone is doing.
Here’s the deal: The coaches, of course, are going to tell their players to go extremely hard in practice. You know, stay extra hours, work hard, give 100% and play like a team. So the players are doing that all week long and when Friday game day comes, they are ready, ready to play and ready to compete. They go into the game and for maybe, sometimes not even, they play the first 2 minutes as hard as their coach told them to during practice and finally take the lead. Then things start to take a turn, for the worst. The calls start flooding in for North and every single type of contact they make is a foul. And that’s where the conflict starts, what are the players supposed to do? Listen to the referees and play soft basketball or listen to their coach and risk all 5 starters fouling out? It doesn’t make sense, and I’m sick of it. This has been such a rough basketball season to watch for me, and gosh sadly I can’t wait until it’s over, just for the fact that I can actually speak out against the controversy of sports nowadays.
The Rangers will play one more game, Saturday February 20 against the Euclid Panthers, and if all goes well the Rangers should be able to pull up a win. But with chasing around a fast Mayfield team all night the night before, that might be a little difficult. All we can do as fans is have hope.
Hold on Ranger fans, things are going to change.
Here’s the deal: The coaches, of course, are going to tell their players to go extremely hard in practice. You know, stay extra hours, work hard, give 100% and play like a team. So the players are doing that all week long and when Friday game day comes, they are ready, ready to play and ready to compete. They go into the game and for maybe, sometimes not even, they play the first 2 minutes as hard as their coach told them to during practice and finally take the lead. Then things start to take a turn, for the worst. The calls start flooding in for North and every single type of contact they make is a foul. And that’s where the conflict starts, what are the players supposed to do? Listen to the referees and play soft basketball or listen to their coach and risk all 5 starters fouling out? It doesn’t make sense, and I’m sick of it. This has been such a rough basketball season to watch for me, and gosh sadly I can’t wait until it’s over, just for the fact that I can actually speak out against the controversy of sports nowadays.
The Rangers will play one more game, Saturday February 20 against the Euclid Panthers, and if all goes well the Rangers should be able to pull up a win. But with chasing around a fast Mayfield team all night the night before, that might be a little difficult. All we can do as fans is have hope.
Hold on Ranger fans, things are going to change.