High School Basketball: Civil War still carries weight in Longview
In the Foxhole – R.A. Long and Mark Morris boys basketball could meet for Round III; plus perspective from senior Monarchs, Jacks & Jills
Jordan Nailon for BlastZoneMedia.com / blastzonenews@gmail.com
2A Prep Basketball / Civil War Reports
There’s been a lot of chatter in gymnasiums around The Blast Zone this week, and there’s one thing in particular that doesn’t sit quite right. If you’ve watched a game otherwise fraternized in the vicinity of The Lumberdome or Bakamus Gymnasium this season you’ve probably heard it already – the Civil War is dead.
That’s the sort of campfire talk that arises when both the boys and girls’ rivalry series end in lopsided sweeps, but it’s also shortsighted and lacks historical perspective. Because when lines are drawn, and colors chosen, it’s impossible for a team, and all of its players, not to take the Civil War personally.
Sure, the Mark Morris girls swept the Lumberjills for the fourth straight season – and by a combined score of 124-26. And yes, the R.A. Long boys are rewriting their own history after blowing out the Monarchs twice this year and running their own rivalry win streak out to six games– but that’s only part of the equation.
If you pay close attention you’ll find that the most captivating war stories don’t always feature two perfectly matched sides engaged in an epic struggle for the ages. Rather, the tales that tend to reveal a more honest glimpse of the human condition often feature one side that’s fatally overmatched – and the struggle to rise above circumstances beyond their control without ever waving a white flag.
And there’s a chance that Longview’s greatest rivalry could return to Joe Moses Court this week for Round III of the boys Civil War series. All it would take for that to happen is for Mark Morris to defeat W.F. West in their 2A District IV pigtail game in Chehalis on Thursday – and the Monarchs have already notched a victory over those Bearcats, with a 65-55 decision at home back on Dec. 15.
That arrangement — along with a heap of off the court woes on the other side of the lake in recent weeks — has left plenty of uncertainty for the Lumberjacks as they wait to learn who exactly they’ll be hosting on Saturday in the District quarterfinals.
And none of that was of much concern to the league champion Lumberjacks.
“We can only worry about ourselves. We can’t focus on all the outside noise about what’s going on over there. Whatever happened over there has nothing to do with us,” Key said. “We just tried to stay super locked in and game plan for whoever was playing, which showed out there – that we came in focused right away no matter who was out there.”
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