David Folse II

Being a 23-year-old sportswriter I often get labeled with the “you’re part of that new generation that we don’t like” thing.

Saying that, I wasn’t around for the Saints games at Tulane Stadium or back when Tulane had a great football team kind of thing. I grew up in days of Lebron James, Ricky Williams (unfortunately) and what I consider on the best television shows in the world “Pardon the Interruption.”

Your probably asking yourself if you’re still reading., “What the heck is he talking about.”

Let me get to my point.

One of the favorite clips that is run on PTI is Jets coach Herman Edwards saying, “You play to win the game.”

Okay, so what does that have to do with anything?

Last week, Reserve Christian’s talented girls basketball team beat Central Catholic 102-17.

That’s 102-17.

The 85-point margin of victory has ignited some controversy through the area. Were they trying to run up the score? Why did they put their starters back in? When is it enough? Why try to embarrass a team?

A game like this brings up the old-age question, when is it enough? Should you try to pound a team into the ground or is that not the right thing to do?

Pick what side of the fence you are on. I’m going to try and straddle the middle.

Let’s just look at this game for example. 85 points is without a doubt too much of a margin of victory. No team should ever beat an opposing team by that many points. It’s a complete embarrassment.

However, let’s look at it closely. RCS head coach Kevin Branch’s team shot lights out in the first half and made 18 three-pointers in the game. That’s impressive, you have to tip your hat to them.

Up big at the half, the thing that people who didn’t go to the game didn’t realize was that Branch agreed to take two minutes off of each quarter and played the second half with a running clock.

So the question is, what else could Branch have done?

“You play to win the game.”

Let’s rule some things out. Don’t tell me that he could have just held the ball and run out the clock. You and I both know that would not happen and if it did, he might even catch more slack about that.

So if that happens, you can’t tell your kids to miss shots on purpose.

“You play to win the game.”

It was an unfortunate “perfect storm” when the Eagles took on Central Catholic. RCS had one of their best shooting nights of their lives and they were taking on a less than talented squad. Sometimes these things happen in sports.

So let’s stay off of the Reserve Christian girls. It’s not their fault that they do have one of the most talented teams in the state and will be many people’s choice to contend for a state championship.

Things have a way of balancing themselves out. The RCS girls will not be good forever. Everyone is good and bad at times.