When the Grand Island Central Catholic game was put on the schedule it immediately gained a high degree of interest. The Crusaders were a legitimate Class B contender on a Wahoo schedule that was a majority Class C1 opponents. Added to the buzz was the fact that the game was the last game of the regular season. With Wahoo and GICC ranked #1 and #5 respectively at the start of the season, the expectation for a memorable contest mounted as both teams put together outstanding seasons. GICC came into the game with a 17 – 1 record and a #4 ranking when the Warriors came to town on February 19th. As much as a month before the game, Coach Anderson was being asked about the upcoming match. While he did the usual coach speak about playing each game, he did comment, “That is going to be quite a game.” Many saw this game as an opportunity for a rare regular season loss for the Warriors. No Nebraska team had beaten Wahoo in the regular season since 1988. The Crusaders had reason to be optimistic. They were playing at home and they had a dual inside threat with 6’7” Colin Baker and 6’8” Eric Strand. Journalist Mike Friend of the Grand Island Independent pointed out in a pregame article that “the best 1-3-1 can be overcome with solid post play.” He also made a bold prediction – a 60 – 59 GICC win.
What journalist Friend had not calculated was that Wahoo was much more than a 1-3-1 zone. It was the Wahoo press that proved the downfall of the Crusaders. Wahoo made GICC look just like any other opponent in the first quarter, forcing 11 turnovers and jumping out to a 26 – 12 lead. GICC Coach Bill Gavers admitted, “We didn’t handle their press in the first quarter.” But GICC did what most teams were unable to do – they bounced back in the second quarter to outscore the Warriors and trail by only 11 at half. And it very easily could have been a single digit lead, but an unlikely three pointer by center, Travis Toline at the buzzer gave the Warriors a little extra cushion. One reason for the Crusader comeback was the absence of forward, Mike Simons in the second quarter. Simons had picked up three quick fouls and was sitting the bench. Coach Anderson: “Sitting Simons really hurt us because we’re not real big to begin with.”
The Crusaders were doing a lot of damage on the inside as Strand and Baker had combined for 25 of GICC’s 39 first half points. But it was outside shooting, primarily by sophomore C.J. Cowgill that kept the Crusaders in the game in the second half. Cowgill came off the bench to net four three’s and contribute 18 points. Casey Hansen also bombed in three from behind the arc in the second half. But even with the boost from the outside, GICC couldn’t really narrow the gap. Toline scored the first six points of the second half and Mike Hancock poured in eight points as Wahoo closed the quarter with a 68 – 55 lead. The Warriors pushed the lead to as much as twenty in the final stanza as Hancock posted ten more points to lead all scorers with 27. The final was 93 – 77, Wahoo.
For the Warriors it was the kind of competition they needed to get ready for district play. Coach Anderson commented, “We wanted a tough game on the road to end the season because we have two sophomores who we want to get used to this kind of pressure and this type of atmosphere.” (The game had been played before a standing room only crowd.) And yet, even though a losing effort, Coach Gaver thought it was a positive experience: “I thought we showed a lot of resiliency, character and heart, and that’s a good sign.”
Normally, a sixteen point victory over a top ranked opponent would go a long ways toward validating a team’s claim to greatness. But for Wahoo that wasn’t the case. World Herald reporter Daryl Blue wrote that GICC’s performance gave “a glimmer of hope for other Class B teams looking to derail Wahoo’s drive to a possible sixth state title in the past seven years.” Perhaps the key word was “glimmer.” While facing Wahoo appeared to be a daunting task from the opponents’ point of view, it was now the time of year when the task at hand for the Warriors could become a little daunting as all it would take would be one bad night and all the “validation” the Warriors had accumulated would fade quickly. Coach Anderson proclaimed as he had every year when the Warriors approached district play: “We haven’t accomplished anything yet.” But after playing the Warriors for the first time, Coach Gavers summed up his impression: “They’re a great team whose been in a lot of different situations; they have a lot of guys who can do good things for them and that’s why they’re where they’re at today.”
Validation?
