I have never quite fully understood the true meaning of Indian River basketball super-fan and unofficial ambassador of the student section Queen Bratton’s “What the woo woo?” chant until last Friday night, when Delmar’s Larry Ennis miraculously sunk not one, but two buzzer-beating three-pointers to force triple overtime (which I heard was a pretty good column in the Coastal Point, by the way) and eventually lead to a 95-91 victory for the Wildcats.
The first buzzer-beater was shocking; the second one was even more so. Crazy. Ridiculous, even. “Sportscenter”-worthy. Other adjectives and descriptive phrases, too.
After having to delete a tweet that read something along the lines of “Indians hang on to take down South leader Delmar 67-64,” after Ennis raced down the court and drained a desperate shot from right beyond the arc at the end of regulation, I then had to do it again at the end of the first overtime. Which went back and forth until Indian River point guard Kei Juan Major drew a foul with six seconds left and hit both his shots at the line, to put the Indians up 75-72.
I was typing out yet another tweet that I thought would be my last for the night while Major was at the line (banking on Skeeter hitting both shots, which he did). “That’s game. Indians unseat South leader Delmar 75-72 in overtime thriller,” it said... until I had to delete that one, too, because “Ennis the Menace” did it again. With six seconds left, he took the inbounds pass and barely made it past half-court before launching another determined dart and sinking it right before the buzzer.
What. The. Woo woo. Larry.
Ennis had left the whole place speechless — even Queen and the student section, who had been relentless all night with their chants of “Larry, Larry, Larry,” and “Larry had a little lamb,” to go along with all the old Queen classics like “Take that ball, take da ball,” and “Hot dogs and baked beans, apple pie and scrambled eggs, who wants some?”
Apparently, Larry Ennis wanted some, and he got some. Because, as head coach Mike Fabber said of his performance after the game, “Great players want the ball.” He stole that line from Gene Hackman, who said something similar to Keanu Reeves in the final seen of the movie “The Replacements,” but still he’s right. And, who knows, maybe Hackman stole from him. Or Vince Lombardi.
I could have killed Chris Clark — you know, our photographer who sometimes goes to games — who left at halftime because he apparently already “got the shot.” I remember asking him, “Are you sure? This should be a pretty good game.”
But little did either of us know just how good of a game it would be. I have no idea what Chris went to go do (he probably went to go see the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” or some other weird, eccentric artist-type thing), but I can assure you that whatever it was, there’s no way it was better than what was going on in Dagsboro on Friday night — which, admittedly, is something I never thought I’d say.
So there I was by myself for the rest of the game, shooting photos, taking notes and trying to tweet for seven nerve-wracking quarters of back and forth basketball — too mentally drained to figure out whether or not they’re still call “quarters” if there’s seven of them — when I thought to myself, “If I’m this exhausted from standing on the sidelines, how tired are they?” I’ve played in some close lacrosse games in my day, but none of them like that.
By the end of third overtime, you could see it. Players were starting to foul out, miss shots that they would usually make, and showing signs of both emotional and physical exhaustion. But they battled on until there was winner, which, fittingly, was decided by Ennis, who hit both of his foul shots, to put the Wildcats up 95-91 with just a few ticks left on the clock — a rather anticlimactic ending for an otherwise rollercoaster ride of a game.
For Delmar and Larry Ennis, it was the highest of highs. For the Indians who had left everything that they had on the court, it was absolute disbelief. No one said much, because what was there to say — except for just “Wow.” Or perhaps just “What the woo woo,” like Queen Bratton.
After debating whether or not Todd would let me ice my now-practically-crippled Twitter-fingers in the school’s whirlpool, I decided to toughen up and go get the interview with Coach Fabber, who — just like everyone else — didn’t have much of an explanation for the instant classic that we had all just witnessed. Still, he was proud of his squad and had every reason to be.
On the drive home, I thought up the headline “Ennis the Menace,” for the paper this week (which I’m hoping goes over slightly better than “Quack Attack,” did with the general public last spring), writing this column in my head while I drove and ignoring a few phone calls and texts from my friends who were wondering what I was up to that Friday night. I was at the Indian River/Delmar basketball game in Dagsboro, guys. Why the woo woo weren’t you?