Three is not a magic number

Hoops Sagrado has a very long and storied history with the professional basketball team here in Xela. To say the rivalry is friendly would be a stretch...if this were college football it would be the marquee game during Rivalry Weekend. It always gets heated, the refs always suck and sometimes Hoops Sagrado wins and sometimes Xela wins.

So many grumpy faces. It was a good game though!

The first game on Saturday was the Hoops Sagrado Young Guns game and it was a good, close game. With just .2 of a second left on the clock, the ball was inbounded to Demani who shot it and made it, the only problem is the ref called him for traveling and therefore the bucket was disallowed. The bigger problem is, the whistle came after he shot the ball and he WASN'T traveling! Sigh...thus is the life of the visiting basketball team. In the end if was Hoops Sagrado 62 vs. Xela 63 (Alex 23P/1A/13R; Los 3P/1A/2R; Manny 1P/3R; Christian 2P/2A/3R; Djeder 12P/2R; Zion 2P/1A; Demani 7P/3A/3R; Kevin 8P/2A/2R; Renard 2P/1A/2R; Jesse 2P; Xander 3R).

The Xela coach suggested we take this picture before the game so everyone would be smiling!

Next up was the Hoops Sagrado women's team. It's been a long time (2009) since we've had a women's team available to play against the Xela women's team so for those of us who have been around for a while, this was a real treat and it was a great game. It was a tough, hard-fought match as proof by the fact that more than one player for each team had four fouls, but in the end Xela, who had the luxury of having two substitutes prevailed. Xela 63 vs. Hoops Sagrado 61 (KayKay 15P/1A/7R; Tee 31P/1A/13R; Tevanah 13P/1A/7R; Mackenzie 2P/1A/3R; Malaika 1A/2R).

Before the final game of the night, the Xela team honored their longtime coach who died unexpectedly earlier this year. Since we have been playing against them for so long and consider many of the current and former players to be our friends (and our rivals of course) it was nice to be there for this special occasion.

Special sentiments aside, the game was a tough one. Hoops Sagrado was up 5 at the half, but then down 3 at the start of the fourth quarter and in the end Xela won. Xela 70 vs. Hoops Sagrado 61 (Bryan 7P/2A/2R; Diggs 17P; Malik 7P/5R; Josh 3A/7R; Alex 2P/1A/5R; Stan 3P/1R; Michael 9P/4A/3R; Demani 9P/1A/1R; Renard 2P/1A/5R; Kevin 5P/2A/1R).

Hasta proximo Xela! Hasta proximo!