The Griffins’ Fantastic Five – messrs. Ho, McLuskey, Mockford, Penn and Tonkin – hit the pine to battle South’s… Five at the Dome tonight – and there would they all stay for the next 40 minutes with both sides deciding their benches were superfluous.

 

The Griffins opened with some sweet shooting from Scotty and B, nailing buckets from wherever they got the ball. Inside out? 2 points. Stroll to the foul line and don’t get defended? 2 points. Fast break jumpers? 2 points. J Tizzle tried to assert some dominance inside but his new shoes clearly dazzled the ref, causing some travel calls that took a good deal of the Fantastic out of the 5. The exodus of the fantastical continued as 14 fouls were called for the quarter, B being responsible for 3 early ones.

 

The Griffs decided to close out the quarter by winding the clock down to ten seconds before making a move. Unfortunately everyone fell asleep before then – nobody moved and the ball was passed straight into an opponent’s arms for a layup. It was all part of the master plan however as with 4 seconds remaining the ball was inbounded to Kelly who calmly banked it in from the half way line.

 

Griffins 21 – 14 South

 

The Fandango Five reentered the court to the tune of Kelly apologizing for about the 17th time for turning the ball over. The game then began to settle into a pattern: certain overzealous Griffs dancing out of reach of opponents to avoid fouling out, and hoping we could score more at the other end. B continued where he left off from inside the arc and the Griffs maintained their lead.

 

Griffins 37 – 31 South

 

Having fulfilled their travel quota for night, JT’s shoes were allowed to score a quintuple of baskets for the quarter including one fadeaway fallaway leanaway moveaway welliwasgoingbackwardsanyway on the post. He also picked up his fourth foul and became meaningless defensively – getting further and further away from the ball. Nonetheless, the Fading Five executed offensively and started to run the floor for some easy buckets, pushing their lead out at the final change.

 

Griffins 59 – 46 South

 

The Flabbergasted Five decided South could now have all the layups they liked – we intended to win anyway. With tiring legs some space opened up for Chris (2) and Kelly (1) to drain some threes and get us over the line with the help of a couple of steals from our guards.

 

Griffins 77 – 68 South

 

Scotty – 16

JT’s New Shoes – 21

Chris – 14

Kel – 10

B – 16 (or 46 if you believe the scribble on the scoresheet)

 

Clearly the difference was in the coaching staff: Phil – back with us after chasing fame and glory with the 5.2 team – calling four timeouts during the game to the (nonexistent) South coach’s… zero, despite having as many players as this article will likely have readers.

 

T minus four weeks to finals!

 

Also I got new shoes.

 

Peace out.