Hey St. Anthony fans please let your friends and family members know about me and my blog.
Mdlblog.com is on Facebook and Twitter and I got photo albums for all the games I have attended. The Judson/St. Anthony photo album can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.571233019636537.1073741833.549116061848233&&uploaded=162
On Wednesday, I was at Judson High School for a High School football…I mean, a High School Basketball game (sorry folks, I have worked a lot of Judson football games at D W Rutledge stadium at both the new stadium and the old stadium before the renovations…I actually found a picture in my files of the old press-box) between the Judson Rockets and the St. Anthony Yellow Jackets.
Compared to D W Rutledge stadium, the Judson gymnasium doesn’t have the WOW FACTOR. It is very simple but yet adequate and has stands on both sides.
I sat at the media table across from the player benches. This is normally where TSRN would broadcast from (but they didn’t do this particular game). Manning the media table was Ralph Judkins. Ralph worked several of the Judson home football games with us last season (by last season, I mean 2013…feels weird to call it last season). He does podcasts of the games but didn’t have his equipment set-up for the game, but he really wanted to get his equipment and throw a headset on me so we could broadcast the game. I was like, “NO NO NO.”
Obviously when you are that close to the action, you must be prepared to come face-to-face with a loose ball…if that happened to me, I didn’t want to end up being on a viral video for the entire world to see (wait, that would be great publicity for me). Well, during the game, the basketball was heading directly toward me…I let my camera go since it was wrapped around my wrist and Ralph also used his hand to protect it. I caught the ball with my left hand and passed it right back to the nearest St. Anthony player. Quick adrenaline rush with no bloopers, flubs, spills, breaks, or oh craps!!!
Now, I did drop my camera during the pre-game warm-ups and my battery fell out and the cover needed a little bit of tinkering to close it so it could operate. Yes, it wasn’t around my neck…I was improvising and trying to get detail shots…totally my fault!!
I also saw Joe Perez Jr from the Judson Football Highlights page on Facebook. He was doing what he does best…taking photographs!!!
The Head Coach at Judson is Mike Wacker and he films the Judson football games and whenever I go to the film deck, I say hi!!! He may not know my name, but he definitely knows my face and he is always friendly to me. So, yeah, I said hi to him before the game started and when he and Coach Smisek were chatting before the game and without any hesitation, I stood in front of them and snapped a picture of the two coaches. If it was a coach I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have done that.
I saw Mike Miller (not the pro basketball player who killed the Spurs in the NBA finals in June), the Judson Athletic Director, but he probably didn’t recognize me without my TSRN shirt.
OK, so I was planning on doing a VISUAL PHOTO BLOG only for this game, but it was so exciting that I had to write something about it.
The Judson Rockets are the number 1 team in the city, number 1 in the state of Texas in several polls, and one of the top 10 teams in the country!!! Coming into the game, they had 20 wins and 1 loss and are led by 6’9 David Wacker (coach’s son and he has committed to play at Boise State) and 6’7 Tanner Leissner. Those are not typos…everything is correct!!! Yeah, WOW!!!
St. Anthony had 14 wins 6 losses and had a 5 game winning streak with sophomore Brandon Armstrong winning the player of the week from the Express News. Brandon averaged 16.8 points and 8.8 rebounds and they won the championship at the Randolph Tournament!!
Judson jumped to an early 15 to 0 lead and I was praying to the “basketball gods” that the Yellow Jackets would score a bucket just to get that big fat 0 off the scoreboard. After 1 quarter, the Rockets led 22 to 8.
At halftime, the Yellow Jackets trimmed the Rocket lead to 7 as they trailed 40 to 33. I smell an upset brewing!
The score was 54 to 46 after 3 quarters.
Judson had a lead of 56 to 52 with 6 minutes left in the game and took a time-out since St. Anthony was going on a run and the mojo was in favor of the Yellow Jackets. Judson in-bounded the ball and held it for 3 minutes (in football terms, they took a brief knee to run clock). You can do that in high school basketball because there is no shot-clock. I am not sure if it was done strategically or if it was Judson’s only chance of survival? Whatever the reason was, it worked because Judson escaped and got a not so easy victory. The final score was Judson 63 and St. Anthony 54.
Now, if we can only go back in time and get those 3 minutes back, I really think St. Anthony would’ve won the game.
David Wacker scored 8 points and Tanner Leissner scored 22 points for the Rockets. I was impressed with their heights and unselfish play. They pounded the ball inside all game long and it worked (then again, when you have a 6’7 and a 6’9 player, that is what you should do; heck, even I know that and I am not a Coach…I am just a BLOGGER).
Folks, I gotta tell you that Judson didn’t look like the number 1 team in the city! I don’t think Coach Wacker was happy with the Judson performance, but I know Judson sports and they will be angry and ready to play for the next game (they play Wagner tonight in the first district game).
Darren Meeks led the Yellow Jackets with 12 points. Johnatan Reyes had 11 points, Isiah Saenz had 10 points (I love seeing his face full of happy emotions), Jax Chavez had 9 points, Brandon Armstrong had 7 points, Ricardo Valadez had 3 points, and senior Stephen Wallace had 2 points. The Yellow Jackets relied heavily on the three ball and they did well on that (I wouldn’t want to go up against David or Tanner in the lane).
I am always impressed with the Yellow Jackets as they play team ball and they always come ready to play and never give up. I know that this loss will be a HUGE confidence builder for the team as they start district in a few weeks.
You gotta give a BUNCH OF KUDOS to the St. Anthony coaching staff for preparing the players for this game. Coach Smisek told me after the game that they executed the game plan and did what they wanted to do…wow!!! He also wanted me to say something to the players. I was like “NO NO NO, this is your team.”
That actually got me thinking on the drive home…what would I have said? It would probably be something like this: “You played a heck of a game and I am so damn proud of each and every one of you. You didn’t look flustered and never gave up. I am honored that I have a front-row seat to Yellow Jacket Basketball. Sting em Jackets!!!”
Here is my schedule of the St. Anthony games I will be attending:
Tuesday, January 14th @ St. Anthony
Wednesday, January 22nd @ UIW (vs. Antonian)
Wednesday, January 29th @ Central Catholic
Saturday, February 8th @ UIW (vs. Central Catholic)
Mdlblog.com is on Facebook and Twitter and I got photo albums for all the games I have attended. The Judson/St. Anthony photo album can be viewed here:
On Monday, I will publish our Rockport Vacation BLOG.
On Tuesday, I will be at the good ole Hive of St. Anthony.
And, on Wednesday, I will be at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Alamo Convocation Center. As you may or may not already know, I have been photographing the renovations for the gym and football stadium.
