SOXWIN!2005
Chillicothe IL VOICE newspaper. 2 of 7
STORY by Brian L Fislar. Sent to me by Patti Boswell Hedden former Chilli/Lacon IL resident. The story was pretty much RIGHT on as to what took place that night. WE were down by 8 at half for the VERY first time all year. We were the ones who usually had big leads at half. The Coaches spurred us on by showing us RANTOUL celebrating in the other locker room. You could see all the way through the Coaches room glass windows of Newman Gym back then INTO the other locker. They were acting like they had won already. Coach Tony BLEW yelled, "LOOK at them! they think they won already! YOU going to let them get away with that?!" Coach Blew said "There's not a team down here that can beat you guys!" then the coaches rolled a blackboard on wheels between us and their locker-room view and we devised a new winning strategy for the 2nd half. Coaches felt we were too timid and should drive to the hole more to get fouled. It worked great as Rantoul kept fouling us and looked scared. Our pressure defense caused a lot of late turnovers by their guards. At the winning shot our "premature" celebration was actually the REFS bowing to Rantoul COACH Summers complaint claiming there was still 1 second left after ALEX RAZO's winning basket. NO WAY. TIME was out, buzzer sounded. Still, they decided to give Rantoul one final shot at it but a full court heave fell way short at half-court and (fittingly) ALEX RAZO jumped up to tip it back towards the thrower and the buzzer sounded, We all celebrated again. Yes. Later on they loaded us on Fire Trucks and drove through town with sirens blaring as we chanted "We're Number ONE!" even though it was well after 10:30pm.
Back at Pearce to celebrate all the school was there surrounding US with Punch and Cake as we basked in the presence of the State Champion Trophy. We tried to get THEN School Principal Mike Mercer to give us the next day off *since it was so late* Best he would budge on was a half-hour later start time. What a night and what a season it was.
www.chillicothevoice.com/2022/07/26/406750/what-legends-a...
Chillicothe IL VOICE newspaper. 2 of 7
STORY by Brian L Fislar. Sent to me by Patti Boswell Hedden former Chilli/Lacon IL resident. The story was pretty much RIGHT on as to what took place that night. WE were down by 8 at half for the VERY first time all year. We were the ones who usually had big leads at half. The Coaches spurred us on by showing us RANTOUL celebrating in the other locker room. You could see all the way through the Coaches room glass windows of Newman Gym back then INTO the other locker. They were acting like they had won already. Coach Tony BLEW yelled, "LOOK at them! they think they won already! YOU going to let them get away with that?!" Coach Blew said "There's not a team down here that can beat you guys!" then the coaches rolled a blackboard on wheels between us and their locker-room view and we devised a new winning strategy for the 2nd half. Coaches felt we were too timid and should drive to the hole more to get fouled. It worked great as Rantoul kept fouling us and looked scared. Our pressure defense caused a lot of late turnovers by their guards. At the winning shot our "premature" celebration was actually the REFS bowing to Rantoul COACH Summers complaint claiming there was still 1 second left after ALEX RAZO's winning basket. NO WAY. TIME was out, buzzer sounded. Still, they decided to give Rantoul one final shot at it but a full court heave fell way short at half-court and (fittingly) ALEX RAZO jumped up to tip it back towards the thrower and the buzzer sounded, We all celebrated again. Yes. Later on they loaded us on Fire Trucks and drove through town with sirens blaring as we chanted "We're Number ONE!" even though it was well after 10:30pm.
Back at Pearce to celebrate all the school was there surrounding US with Punch and Cake as we basked in the presence of the State Champion Trophy. We tried to get THEN School Principal Mike Mercer to give us the next day off *since it was so late* Best he would budge on was a half-hour later start time. What a night and what a season it was.
www.chillicothevoice.com/2022/07/26/406750/what-legends-a...