Taming the Panthers

Saturday night my son's basketball team accomplished an amazing feat.......they tamed a team of panthers. We had lost badly to the Panthers a couple weeks ago and I was expecting a repeat performance........especially while playing under the watchful eyes of this big panther mural on the wall of the fieldhouse:

There was more than one big cat face to be seen in the Panther Fieldhouse. Here my son and his teammate (they've played together since 5th grade) retrieve the ball from the snarly feline whiskers:

This fellow--whom I'm quite well-acquainted with--is brazenly laughing right into the panther's face. Read on to find out why.......
Take a look at this bizarre final score......in our favor.
The Panthers are the defending state champions.......this banner is presented as proof:
It will be a cheerful bus ride home:

Hooray, we tamed the defending state champs and knocked them out of contention for the conference title, too. Heehee. How was that accomplished? I still shake my head in disbelief. The Panthers failed to do something crucial......play their own run & shoot style of basketball. Our coach's strategy was to change the game's tempo, bringing the pace down to a crawl......hence the low final score. That very slow, deliberate gameplan threw the Panthers far enough out of sync that we were able to eke out a victory.

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Husband couldn't make it to the game; he stayed home to milk the cows......and feed my calves. When I phoned to tell him the awesome news that we had won, he said, "Oh, you liar." He'd been expecting our team to lose, too.

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After the game, some of us celebrated by dining at "HuHot". If you don't know what that is, tune in tomorrow to find out.

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