30 years later

Mentor High Boys Basketball made the OHSAA State tournament! How exciting. First time they've ever made it to states in BB. And they've come so close in other sports, I felt lots of folks were rooting for them.

I looked for something Mentor to wear but alas I no longer have anything MENTOR. Red I can do but it would say Ohio State!
The sad thing is almost 30 years later, well I don't really know anyone any more! 3 or 4 years after I graduated would have been much more fun. But I was way excited anyways, actually if nothing else it gives you an excuse to watch and cheer! So now that I've told everyone I'm from Mentor I started worrying that perhaps they'd be "one of those teams" that we don't care for at the Schott!

And being me -- of course I met the Athletic Director (pic above), the principal, and the superintendant. And I saw Max Ness, who was the AD when I graduated. I warned the AD that since I told everyone I was from Mentor it would be REALLY embarassing if they went and messed up MY (well not really!) building! But not to worry, the crowd was very nice, fun, well behaved (well a few choice words in cheers but all in all pretty good!)


You could tell from warm ups the kind of team they would be. Very disciplined, great shooters, and SMALL! But they truly played well together.

I didn't, however, understand the banana. The AD explained that St. Eds (the way higher ranked team they picked off to make it to states) had a Mascot of a Gorilla. So the Mentor kids thought the banana comeback was pretty funny! That and the Tasmanian Devil explained alot about their spirit!

They went up early thanks to some lights out 3 point shooting. Give them credit they also kept driving to the basket even though they gave up several inches to everyone on the other team. But Moeller came back to go up at halftime.

The 2nd half was back and forth until Mentor tied it up and then got the ball back with about 1 minute 40 to go. They stalled and them Moeller pressed them. They had a great look for a three pointer but chose to keep ticking the clock down. Unfortunately their last shot was forced and no good.

OT (just what the folks working never want!)!!!!

OT was close. Down by 2 they fouled Moeller. He hits the first, missed the 2nd. In the lane they push off (OK OK maybe I'm biased!), get the rebound and get fouled on the putback and make the foul shot. Now we're down 6 with less then 30 seconds. That was too much to recover.

Which was a shame. Always hard to lose to a school that "recruits" and always hard to get that close and lose period. And what a nice nice team. Play well, great team work. The coach was quite calm (except for a couple times when he had to scream at them!) and basically walked the sideline sipping a cup of water. You could tell he was well respected and the kids were well coached as they played their way out of several situations.

#44 (my favorite number!) was a senior who blew out his ACL 2 games ago. They played him in the first half but he hurt himself again. What a tough blow. He'll have surgery after the season, I'm thinking he was a pretty key player. #44 for Moeller was a real nice player, Tall, thin, could shoot threes. Impressive. Of course you'd expect that from #44.

So although I didn't really know anyone any more I made a couple of friends, had fun cheering, wasn't embarrased!, and bade them good travels with the hope of seeing them next year.

And worse if they made it to the finals I think I was going to score a Mentor sweatshirt!

Go Cards -- see you next year!