It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times, especially if you are the mother of a high school coach and a diehard ZAGS fan who has to decide which team to watch when they played at the same time.
It was the best of times if you made the decision to skip watching the ZAGS game and go to town on a rainy night to watch your son's high school girls basketball game against a traditional powerhouse---Timber Lake, undefeated with 11 wins.
It was the worst of times if you were home watching that ZAGS game against a traditional rival.
I know about both of these situations.
After spending a day of inner turmoil and finally convincing myself that life would go on if I did not stay home to watch the ZAGS take on the BYU Cougars, I went to the SHS game, assisted through my cell phone by another ZAGS diehard who was home watching the ZAGS.
At Bulldog Gym aka Les Rogers Gymnasium, the band had showed up as had the dedicated cheering squad. Lots of color to enhance the basketball action.
Timber Lake had also shown up, primed to notch their 12th win and remain undefeated.
I had heard from a good source that Coach Love was pretty nervous about this game because it had been a while since Sandpoint had defeated Timber Lake.
While the Bulldogs were once more using their intense defense and general basketball skills to take the lead and to keep the lead, except for a brief time before half, I saw that the ZAGS had gotten off to a good start in Provo.
My friend Kevin was nice enough to send me pictures of the action, along with the score several times during the first half.
He also provided brief commentary, noting that the ZAGS looked a bit flat.
In the second half at Les Rogers Gym, Willie's Bulldogs maintained their lead, occasionally allowing the Timber Lake squad to narrow the gap.
Twas an ultimate pleasure to watch this amazing game with two amazing teams. The pleasure came, though, in the knowledge that the Bulldogs maintained the lead.
Meanwhile, in the second half at the game in Provo, ZAG action appeared to not be going as smoothly as that Bulldog action in Sandpoint.
Kevin's commentary turned from phrases to one-word, maybe not repeatable, characterizations. He did use a complete sentence once when he said he was getting too old for this.
I eventually found myself actually doing some cheerleading to help Kevin's dismal outlook, reminding him to "keep the faith . . . the Catholic faith, that is!"
Later, when Kevin sent the picture of the score with a 10-point ZAG deficit, I announced to my family members and also texted to him that it was probably a good thing that I had left the ZAGS game behind in favor of watching Willie's game.
More bleak one-word commentary lit up the phone screen as the Sandpoint Bulldogs wrapped up an impressive victory, definitely one of the biggest, most meaningful games of the year.
We were thrilled.
But wait!
The tide had turned in the Marriott Center. Suddenly, the ZAGS were just one point behind the Cougars with seconds left in the game.
I saw a video this morning where Cougar fans were headed down the walk ways to storm the court.
I also saw that the ZAGS Julian Strawther symbolically responded with, "Not so soon!" when he dropped a 3-pointer to take a one-point lead with less than nine seconds left.
By that time, we were standing around in the Bulldog Gym, relishing the great Sandpoint victory when Kevin called my cell phone.
"Hold tight," he said, then, "ZAGS won!"
Giddy screams of joy broke the post-game calm in Les Rogers Gym.
I could only imagine what my mood would have been like had I stayed home on the couch watching the ZAGS until that last second turnabout.
Twas much better to create that one-time buffer, leaving the misery to Kevin and every other ZAG fan who must have come close to cardiac arrest or maybe uttered some one-word commentary as they watched the TV game.
Victory was SO SWEET last night, no matter how or where it happened with our much beloved Sandpoint and Gonzaga Bulldogs.
Congratulations to all. And, thank you, Kevin.
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