NT Post-Game Report: Panama 8/8
Reporting live here in Mexico City, Mexico, the Season 17 America's Championship was underway! The United States National Team was set to take on Panama in our first game of the first round. Emotions were at a high, as I looked down the line of the players, I knew we had a special group of guys here, Jairo was crying, Medrano was rubbing his magic sideburns, Logsdon was sneaking a quick "drink", and I don't even want to get started with what Dexter Dennison was doing by the scorers table, but nontheless we had a good group of guys here.
Starting Line-up:
PG: Joe "The Show" Bronson
SG: Martin "Money" Medrano
SF: Irwin "The Swiss Army Knife" Velasco
PF: Paul "The Postman" Owens
C: Jairo Alejandro Renteria aka "The Beast"
Getting right down to the action, Panama tried to catch the US off guard with a crunch time and attack our interior when they decided to go low post. The United States challenged the Panama man to man with a motion. With the first basket for the US this season, Irwin Velasco went strong to the rim for a layup. It set the tone as Velasco and Medrano hit the next few shots before "Postman" Paul Owens had a special delivery as he drained the first US 3 of this NT season! The game was a nail-biter at the end of the first the United States led 26-24. Starting off slow in the second quarter the United States started to catch fire from everywhere especially some nice 3 balls by Ricky Logsdon, and Irwin Velasco to get us roaring on a run. At the end of the half the United States outscored Panama 28-15 in the second to head into the locker rooms with the 54-39 lead.
Heading into the locker room at half there was a commotion as the players entered. No it wasn't Gipson or Lundy this time but actually Senior Advisers for our NT! Assistant NT Head Coach Brian, Former NT Coach Wozz, and Former U21 Coaches Coco & Jelme were going in all out brawl!! As Brian used his bags of money as a wall and a weapon it started to get violent when Jelme brought out his guns (No not real guns, i'm talking about his arms) but it was short-lived once Wozz picked up a chair.
NT Head Coach Jason: Woah Woah Woah what's going on here?!?
Jfarb: Well before the players came into the half some of us wanted to go here to talk about an "issue" *cough* Velasco *cough* to see if that issue was useful or not as a player. As you can see we had a very heated debate in here
NT Head Coach Jason: Well... let's lay it to rest and take this game and we'll argue another time, hopefully enough time so we can place bets on who wins the fight.
After the players saw their coaches fighting in the locker-room at half, some were scared, well mostly Jairo, but others had their adrenaline pumping! The United States pounced on their 15 point lead and continued to pour it down on Panama. With the lead at 21, everything was going the United States way. However, Panama still had some more left in the tank as they slowly clawed themselves back in the third making it a 12 point US lead heading into the fourth. With one more quarter left the game was starting to get intense. The United States and Panama battled by trading baskets but slowly Panama was narrowing the gap. With a minute left they were down only 6 to the United States. Free throws however were to much for Panama once Ricky "Logdog" Logsdon, Martin "Money" Medrano, and Joe "The Show" Bronson put the game away. In the end the United States pulled out a 96-85 victory.
After all the celebrations are over I'm going to head over to the interview table to speak with Martin Medrano and Paul Owens, followed by the first Coaches statement by new NT Head coach Jason, so stay tuned in a few hours!
-SpF-