Runnin Reformers are undefeated!

The Wartburg Runnin' Reformers opened the season last night with a game against the Dbq Ballers. We had 7 guys show up, so we all got plenty of playing time. We got out to a quick 10 point lead early thanks to some strong rebounding and fast breaks. The Ballers closed the gap towards halftime, but we were still up at the break. The game remained close through the second half. One of our players fouled out with about 5 minutes to go, so we were down to one sub. That meant that I played all but about 4 minutes of the game.

So we were up by 2 with 10 seconds left when their big man drove to the basket and drew a foul as time expired. He made both free throws to send the game to OT. It was back and forth in the extra time until Ben hit a key shot to put us up by 2 with less than 30 seconds to go. They missed a 1 and 1, and we snagged the rebound, advanced the ball, then called timeout with 19 seconds left. They had a two fouls to give, which they did.

Then the ball was inbounded to me, and I was fouled almost immediately. So I had the chance to seal the game with a couple of free throws. I made the first one, but got called for a lane violation (which was a good call I guess). So I was really upset with myself for being so dumb.

And of course the ball came to the guy I was guarding, who promptly tried to drive baseline to the basket. The refs had been calling fouls all night whenever someone would drive, so I just tried to go straight up without fouling. He missed the layup over me and we both went for the rebound. He grabbed it and tried to put it back, but I swatted the ball out of his hands. They were forced to throw up a desperation shot to try to tie it and missed, so we squeaked out a 64-62 win in OT. Our team seemed to play pretty well together, and it's good to start out with a victory. There will be other teams that will cream us, but we'll definitely have fun together!