GUMption

Since the weather is nice and the roads are clear, we decided to take a school-night road trip to Wausau to watch our boys take on the Newman Cardinals. Whether our boys or girls are playing, the stage is set the same: Always rivals. Always an intense game.

Tonight was crazy intense. I chewed my gum so hard that I had a tension headache by the end.

First off, one of our starters injured his ankle. With big Joe on the bench, propping his foot up, you knew the game just got tougher. It was a battle to the end. I don't know how many times the lead changed but we never were "out" of the game. Always keeping pace or leading.

And me chewing and chewing!

There were a lot of 3-pointers on both sides, which is one reason the score was so high. Here, at 27.6 seconds left, Nathaniel sinks two free throws to move our one-point deficit of 65-64 to a lead by one.

In the NBA, you know a LOT can happen in 27 seconds. Guess what? It can in high school ball, too. Newman ended up scoring to go up by 2 points with less than 15 seconds left. It was almost impossible to get the ball to one of our outside shooters, but with less than 2 seconds left, one of our Royals took the shot.

Bounced off the rim and that was that. Cardinals 1, Robyn's chewing gum, 0.

What a bummer! It gave us a sneak peek, though, to what is sure to be an exciting season. Hopefully everyone can get healthy and remain injury-free.

May the only pain be tension headaches for frenzied fans. Go Royals!