Emily's coach and hoop wildness

I'M BEGINNING TO get the hang of the sports writing thing again. Maybe. I've been covering the Quincy High School girls basketball team, for The Whig, and coach Brad Bergman and his girls are fun to watch. Brad is great to talk with after games and I feel really at home at QHS Gym.

Of course, I spent a lot of long nights in there when Emily played, and saw some good games, and some not so good.

Sans smoke and hat, this is me .....

Last night Springfield Southeast came to town. Southeast is coached by Sandi Devoe, who was the QHS coach for seven seasons, and Emily's coach. Emily definitely learned how to deal with adversity during her four years of varsity basketball, and she can still say she played on the last QHS girls team to win a regional (2007). Coach Devoe was always fair to Emily and her music aspirations, and made sure there was time to pursue both hoops and oboes.

It was nice to talk with Sandi last night before the game and catch up on stuff - both her kids are now playing college basketball, and her husband, Fred, is the Southeast athletic director. Sandi has had some very good teams at Southeast and I'm glad she is doing well.

Unfortunately for her, last night's game didn't end well. It was among the wildest high school hoop games I have ever seen - QHS finally won in overtime on a last second shot. Despite the loss, coach Devoe still gave me some good quotes and took things in stride.

Quincy is an entertaining team to watch. Jada Humphrey, the jitterbug point guard, plays with an unmatched passion and she simply willed her team to a big win last night. The Blue Devils have a lot of younger players and the future looks good for the program, and I couldn't be happier for coach Bergman and his team.

QHS has a home game against Galesburg Thursday night at 6:30, plays at Quincy Notre Dame in the Superfan Shootout at 9 a.m. Saturday against undefeated Clopton (Missouri), and has one more home game a week from Thursday against Moline before the regional tournament starts.

Good grief. I'm starting to sound like a sports guy again ....