You hear it said quite often that “A picture is worth a thousand words”. When I saw Kendra Neie post this photo I thought “I wish everyone knew the thousand words behind this one”.
At first glance this photo captures the celebration of a game winning shot against rival Canadian. To fully understand the emotion in this picture though I must take you back to July 27th when I sat down with newly hired Falcon Basketball Head Coach Connor Copley. We spoke of his journey to Bushland and the excitement that was building around the 2023 Falcons who were set to return their entire Regional Quarterfinalist roster. He knew he wouldn’t have his full squad until mid December after football ended but you could hear the excitement he had for this team.
As football season turned into basketball season the first major obstacle for these 2023 Falcons hit with news that Preseason Amarillo Globe News Super Team player Baylor King would miss the season with a thumb injury sustained during football. Though this was a huge loss for the Falcons it was buoyed by the fact that the Falcons bench was deep and next man up Dawson Jaco had already played a big role in the 2022 playoff run.
The early season Falcons experienced the ups and downs you would expect from a team with a new Head Coach and having lost a major contributor. After an early district loss to Dalhart at home where they blew a 2nd half lead the Falcons rallied with back to back big road wins at Canadian and in Double OT at Spearman. The Falcons were hitting their stride at the perfect time as they prepared for the 2nd half of their district schedule. Then on January 30th they took another major blow as Dawson Jaco’s season came to an end with a fractured ankle. Despite the 2nd major injury to the Falcon roster the team responded with a win at home vs River Road and went on the road that Friday night to Dalhart and got revenge for their earlier loss to the Wolves. Then over the weekend came the news that the Falcons would be down two more Senior starters for the season. Coach Copley was tasked with once again rallying his Falcons in the face of adversity as he had one practice to prepare for rival Canadian.
As the Canadian game tip off neared the Wildcat fans poured into the Nest licking their chops at the opportunity to pounce on what they saw as a depleted Falcon team. In the amped up environment it didn’t take long before the Falcons would take another hit as the dominating inside presence of Grant Whaley was headed to the bench with 2 fouls within the first 2 minutes. Grant would only log 6 minutes all night before fouling out. Coach Copley leaned heavily on a rotation of Matt Bridges, Tripp Purcell and Noah Krause to eat up Whaley’s minutes in the paint. Behind sensational perimeter defense by Zack Zundel, Tate Butcher and Stockton Blount and with Cole Purcell taking the scoring load on his back the Falcons looked up with 2 minutes to go and were within 4 points. After a great defensive play Butcher converted a layup to cut the lead to 2. About 30 seconds later Bridges was fouled and would go to the line and hit both of his free throws to knot the game at 32. The game went back and forth defensively until the Falcons took a time out with 14 seconds left and possession on their offensive baseline. A lot of coaches would have played the game out conservatively holding the ball for a last second shot. Not Coach Copley, he believed if he drew up the right play to get Cole Purcell the open look that he would knock it down. As the Falcons lined up Butcher inbounded the ball, Bridges set the screen and with 8 seconds left Purcell hit what would be the game winning three! The Wildcats inbounded the ball after a timeout but the Falcons defense held them to an off balance prayer and the ball bounced harmlessly off the back board for a 35-32 Falcon victory.
In that moment Kendra caught the perfect photo of the emotion that came from a victory that most outside of Bushland didn’t believe was possible!
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