A Good Day in the World of Sports

Yesterday was a very good day in my sports world, which nowadays consists almost entirely of simply Hosanna and OIT athletics.

Hosanna Christian School's varsity boys team won its regional tourney in LaPine last night and moves on to districts with a home game on Friday night. I attribute all of their success to adding Jordan to the squad last weekend. He actually did get to play about six minutes in Friday night's blowout of Gilchrist High School but, of course, didn't see the light of day in last night's 42-40 nail biter against Hosanna's rival, The Triad School.

Even though he probably won't play a minute the rest of the way, it's neat that he may get the chance to experience a state tournament. Unfortunately, the tourney is eight hours away from here and takes place while I have to be in DC for NACAC's annual lobbying effort. Nonetheless, it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him and I'm excited for him.

OIT's men's basketball team secured a spot at nationals last night, winning the league title. Actually, we tied with Warner Pacific College for the league lead but we held the edge on the tie-breaker and thus got the automatic berth. It's so different being around basketball here . . . it's just assumed that we'll make it to nationals every year. This might be our best team ever. (I think we say that every year, but since our 27-3 record is the best regular season record we've ever had, it probably is true this time.)

I was also pleased that my alma mater managed to finish off a very disappointing season last night with a big 1-point win over OIT's rival, Southern Oregon University. They only won five games this year but at least they finished on a good note. Maybe I'm blocking something out but I don't remember a Warrior team ever winning so few games. (The Corban women are having a very good season but I have a hard time getting too excited about it. Maybe I'll get interested if they end up tipping it off against OIT in the league post-season tournament.)

And lastly, I'm happy to report that I won a t-shirt vs. t-shirt bet with my friend Greg Vaughan as the #15 OIT Owls beat the #21 Biola Eagles 7-3- in softball yesterday at a tournament in Ashland. It's very rare (i.e., "never") that I get the best of Mr. Vaughan so I send my thanks out to Coach Greg Stewart and the women on his squad.