By Staff
Justin Schuver, Sports Editor
Thursday night, freezing rain and sleet were already starting to fall when I left my apartment around 6:30 p.m. to drive to the Pettey Center and cover Hartselle's sub-regional game against Mortimer Jordan.
"Oh well," I thought to myself. "Hopefully they'll still play a good game even in front of a small fanbase."
How wrong I was. The crowd at the Pettey Center was loud and the Hartselle side of the gym was almost completely full. The fans were into the game the whole time, especially the students, who were as active and loud as they were at any football game I saw in the fall.
Just scanning the crowd, I saw students wearing homemade T-shirts demonstrating support for players on the team; I saw students with painted faces; and I saw students who were all too happy to lampoon a poor Mortimer Jordan shot with that old basketball standby chant – "Aaaaaairball! Aaaaaairball! Aaaaairball!" These were not kids who were there to socialize, they were there to watch their team play a basketball game, and they were doing it on a school night and on a night where Old Man Winter was feeling especially ornery.
I remember my own high school latching on to our girls basketball team my sophomore year, when our Westbrook Christian Warriors advanced to the Class 1A state championship against Sunshine High School. I probably had more fun watching those games at the BJCC than any high school football game or other sporting event and it's great to see the Hartselle High students taking advantage of this great opportunity to show their team support.
By the time this column appears in the paper, the girls will have already played their first Regional game against Fairfield. Because of our press schedule, I'm not able to provide coverage of that game until next week's paper, but I do know one thing I'm confident of reporting right now.
The Hartselle fans will be there at Wallace State, and they will be loud.