Round 1: Women’s NAIA Division II National Tournament

I was dumb. I should have written this on Wednesday, but here it is.

I’ve never been really into sports. When I did go to sporting events, I usually cheered pretty loud, but that was more the dramatist in me than the sports fan. As such, when Holli asked me if I wanted to watch the Lady T’s play basketball in the National Tournament, I said, “What’s basketball?” But then I said “Yes”, thinking it was something chinese food-related.

I was wrong. Picture this, me in a car with Holli Gregg, Jennifer Sixta, Kim Sixta, and Kendra Weisser, and they all know about 45x more about basketball than I do. They are all talking about rankings of teams, seedings, divisions, conferences, and giving birth, and all I can do is day dream about that delicious chinese food in Sioux City.

Holli’s parents, Larry and Carol Gregg, were gracious enough to allow us to stay at their place overnight (in Hawarden) so we wouldn’t have so far to drive in the morning. We had to drive in the morning because the game was 8:30AM.

Think about that.

So, after some delicious pizza (not chinese) and some conversation, we all went to bed to get up at 6:00am. In the morning, Holli found a ticket on her car which her father had made up for her. It was funny the way shooting paintballs at a hobo is funny. Well, a little funnier. The Tyson Arena where the games were being played was pretty nice. We bought our ticket ($5.00 with student ID) and found a spot. Then we noticed President Knowlton waving at us, and we journied to find new seats on the opposite side. Eventually the game began.

From what I heard, the Lady T’s didn’t play their best. There was some bad passing, some weak shots, and some poor ball-handling. But then Holli found CiCi, a child she babysat off and on last semester and had yet to reconnect with, and then I spent my time holding things the child gave me.

The game ended with DSU ahead, which means that we won. The crowd wasn’t very big, but we were devoted. Ending score was Trojans: 59 – Shawnee State: 55. There was no chinese food, but (then again) it ended much better than I had thought.

Round 2: Friday at 8:30am.