MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Greatest Of All Time preserved their undefeated standing after overwhelming Mesial Occlusal Distal Facial Lingual with a 10 point lead, ending the nerve-racking championship game, 53-43, at the Marine Corps Community Services IronWorks Gym, July 26.
The competition tipped off with GOAT dominating the court and MODFL, exhausted from their prior game, keeping up with the set pace. The ball moved back and forth between both teams throughout the first half. But GOAT, with fresh legs for the game, pressured MODFL more by going in for the kill and zoning in on the basket.
“I think they are better athletes than us, but we are making up for it out here,” said Thomas Kline, center for MODFL at halftime. As one of MODFL’s strongest competitors, he was consistently pressuring GOAT’s players. “We have to apply our fundamentals and we need to get back on defense faster to defeat them in the second half.”
Even though GOAT didn’t have a strong lead, Reco Alexander, GOAT’s point guard, was everything but worried at halftime. “Overall, we did pretty well the first half. They seem tired from their first game, so we are hoping they’ll break down in the second half.”
Which didn’t happen, at first. MODFL took the game by the horns and ran with it, breathing new life into their side of the scoreboard and shifting the game in their favor. GOAT, surprised with the sudden rush of adrenaline, trailed from the unexpected blow.
Determined not to walk off the court with their heads down, GOAT picked up the straggling points and called a time-out with four minutes left on the clock. The scoreboard glowing a score of 40-40, it was any team’s game.
“We have to play more defense, harder defense,” said Lee Woodbridge, GOAT’s small forward who made 22 points for the game. “If we play harder defense, the offense is going to come.”
Each team walked back onto the court knowing they had something to lose-the championship. The game commenced and like a bat out of hell, GOAT owned the ball and the court.
It was obvious GOAT stopped worrying about the score. They started having fun and MODFL crumbled as they took over. Woodbridge sighted in on the ball and the hoop, and wouldn’t let anything come between them. He effortlessly weaved in and out of MODFL players, faking one direction then sidestepping into another direction as if teasing his opponents.
GOAT’s sudden glorifying performance put them at an easy 13-point lead when a time-out was called with 43 seconds left on the clock, the score 53-40.
“It felt really good,” said Woodbridge about their sudden lead. “I didn’t want to have to play another game. I wanted to leave it all on the court.”
Coming back into the game, MODFL, willing to sacrifice a few points, fouled GOAT players as a way to get their hands on the ball. It wasn’t enough, for the last few seconds GOAT toyed with MODFL by purposefully holding onto the ball as the seconds counted down to their victory, winning the championship game, with a score of 53-43.
MODFL walked off of the court knowing if things were slightly different the results would have been in their favor.
“We hustled a lot but I think we could have done a lot better with rebounding,” said Jeffrey Becker, MODFL’s shooting guard. “If the shots we tried to get would have gone down, I think we would have come out on top.”
GOAT, surprised with MODFL’s overall solid performance, won by focusing less on the prize and more on the game.
“During the season we dominated over everybody, but they (MODFL) came out here and gave us a game. We weren’t expecting them to play that hard. They were putting pressure on us. We knew we had to get out there and do something,” said Nicholas Stewart, GOAT’s center. “After we got that run going we knew we were back to our old selves again. We started to calm down and just play. That’s how we got our lead going, we started having fun.”