Church Basketball Championship

My best basketball experience and perhaps my best sports experience was during my senior year of high school. I played in a church basketball league that I had played on since I was in 8th grade.

The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon Church) had a pretty sweet setup at the time. The games were played every Saturday. The schedule involved everyone in the area. Our area included all of Lexington and everything south to the Tennessee border, basically southeastern Kentucky. I played for the Corbin Ward in Corbin, Kentucky. After cruising through the regular season and tournament undefeated, we set our sights on the regional tournament. This year the regional championship was being held in Evansville, Indiana. It included the best teams from Louisville, Lexington, Northern Kentucky, and Southern Indiana.

I guess if you ranked the final four teams we would be in the top two. My oldest brother Jeff coached the team. He was very enthusiastic and player friendly. At the five spot we had six foot six Andy Potter who easily averaged a triple double in the regular season. He probably set a church record for blocked shots that year. Our other star was Matt Maguet. Matt our six foot point guard easily led our team, and probably the league in points and assists. Matt was a 10th grader at the time and had the sickest jump stop move I have ever seen. The rest of the team consisted of solid role players. I fell into the role player category, starting each game, but never putting up big numbers.

We easily won the first game by about fourteen points. The final game was played the same day. This game would end up being the best game that I ever played. At the games end I had twenty-six points. More impressive than that was my field goal percentage. I did not miss a shot the entire game. I probably doubled my point production of all the previous games played that season. The only thing sweeter than my points scored was that we won the region. It was a perfect ending to my church basketball career.