One high school state basketball tournament here in Yakima ended last night (with an OT win by a local team) Another one begins this coming Wednesday and it doesn’t get any better than this. In the state tournaments teams play with a passion, intensity and desire you don’t find in the regular season.
All that translates into great action and more importantly, great emotion. This is the unvarnished emotion of youth and I love it. A couple of photos from this week’s class 1B tournament.
Two players from Tekoa-Oakesdale High School celebrate their win as the losers from Moses Lake Christian stand mutely on the sidelines of the court. Tekoa-Oakesdale advanced to the championship game where they lost a thriling game by one point in overtime.
On the flip side were the Sunnyside Christian High School girls:
GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic Tearful Sunnyside Christian players (l-r) Julie Long, Andrea Schutt and Joleen Van Wingerden walk off the court after losing 57-53 to Garfield-Palouse in the semifinal game of the state class 1B basketball tournament Feb. 22, 2008 in the Yakima SunDome.
They tearfully walked off the court after losing a close one to Garfield-Palouse in the semifinals, their championship hopes dashed.
Shooting the post-game celebration/dejection isn’t easy – you need to put yourself in the right place at the right time to capture the storytelling emotions. And all that figuring and calculating can be for naught if the players don’t behave according to your plans.
Generally, I try to stand on the baseline at the end of the court where our local team is sitting. Players on the court, whether they are celebrating or crying, generally head toward their bench and teammates at the final whistle. After that initial flood of emotion players from both teams line up and greet the players from the opposing team. After they’ve moved through that line the players again head for their bench. They’re usually still very emotional which gives me another shot at capturing that emotion. And if you’re lucky you’ll get both the winners and losers into the same frame to give a complete picture of the game’s outcome.
I don’t always adhere to this strategy – I shot the two celebrating players on floor from a courtside table near the midcourt line as I was transmitting photos back to the newspaper from an earlier game. Still, the baseline strategy is usually a good place to start
–Gordon King
