January 27th, 2014 | Uncategorized
This past weekend Dublin held the National Cup championship games for Basketball Ireland. And my roommate Chris and his Titans squad faced off against Kilkenny for the Mens National League Shield. The Titans had beaten this same team in the regular season so one would think this should be an easy win. However I left out an important factor about this game…”the curse.” The curse has plagued the Titans mens basketball squad as they have been in the finals for the past 5 years and have yet to seal the deal… that is until this Saturday.
I coached the Titans Basketball Academy morning sessions and then directly hopped on the fan bus to the National Basketball Arena. The atmosphere in the arena was amazing. I was able to sit and watch the game with fellow Dublin scholars Katie and Shelby who had just coached their club team to a thrilling one point victory that morning.
The game started and I felt like an enthusiastic soccer mom screaming and jumping up and down throughout the entire game. I’m friends with all the lads on the team, I’ve done preseason workouts with them, and even attended their first practice of the year. Needless to say I felt attached to this team, and as a Titans coach myself, you can imagine how I lost my voice by the end of this match.
In the Titans first few minutes they were up 9-2 and I mentioned to Shelby, “Wow this is going to be a blow out.” The moment I said that Kilkenny went on a 17-0 run and the Titans were down the rest of the game until the 4th quarter. The first 3 quarters were very poor and I knew the Titans could play so much better than what they were showing. The fourth quarter was an all out battle. It was amazing as the Titans fought back and Chris hit extremely clutch 3 pointers with a few minutes remaining to win the game!
It was surreal just to witness this game, so I can’t even imagine playing in it. Chris was named MVP of the game and the curse on the Titans was broken. I’m so proud to be apart of this basketball club and for the team as well because they really deserved it. It’s also nice having some new hardware decorating our apartment 😉 #VICTORY
