…And here’s part 2.
5. July 10, 1999:
Brandi Chastain Reps America and The 408
I’m pretty sure this was the first time I had ever watched a
women’s soccer game from start to finish: USA vs. China for the 1999 Women’s
World Cup Final. I remember being really pumped up about it, so much so that I
went up to the yogurt lady at my local Yogurt Delite and asked her who she was
rooting for because she was a native Korean and I knew nothing about the
dynamic between China and Korea (even though I lived in an Asian-themed house
my junior year of college and loved it, please don’t ask me about China-Korea
relations today, either).
I don’t remember really anything from the game nowadays besides
two of the penalty kicks taken- the one that Brianna Scurry saved and the one
by San Jose’s own Brandi Chastain. Chastain taking off her jersey after converting the penalty kick that won the ’99 Cup is probably one of the most
iconic images of women’s sports and at least partly contributed to the creation
of the WUSA (CyberRays 4 Lyfe).
And San Francisco STILL has the gumption to call itself “the
city”??? SMH…
4. January 28,
2012: Battle of the Boards in the Battle of the Bay
Rozzle-Dozzle (Rosalyn Gold-Onwude, for those who don’t know
her diva name) and I were really starting to get into a groove with our Pac-12
women’s basketball web series “In the Paint” by the time the first Stanford vs.
Cal game came around. We were ready to break that game down and watch it like nobody else (here’s the breakdown- jump to the 3:53 mark). Ros came up with
that alliteration of a title because the game featured five of the top 15
(approximate) rebounders in the conference at the time in Cal’s Gennifer
Brandon, Talia Caldwell and Reshanda Gray and Stanford’s Ogwumike sisters. Top
two rebounding teams in the conference, two of the top five rebounding teams in
the nation, if I remember correctly. And for real, my favorite thing to watch
is a team that can rebound the basketball. I was in for a treat.
Stanford led by 14 with less than eight minutes to play, but
Cal’s Layshia Clarendon went silent assassin on everyone and got her team to
overtime. Stanford’s D was too much in the end as the Card held on for their 66th
consecutive conference triumph thanks to Chiney Ogwumike’s career-high 27
points and 18 rebounds. It was the pinnacle of Pac-12 basketball in 2011-2012.
3. March 8, 2012:
Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t- GREAT SHOT!
But it wasn’t the pinnacle of exciting Pac-12 basketball for
2011-2012. Ahhh, conference tournaments- one of my favorite times of the year,
and this year was special because I had finagled my way into calling four of
the Pac-12 women’s games in the first and second rounds for the Pac-12 YouTube
page. The second game of Day One featured the 12th-seeded Arizona
Wildcats and a banged up fifth-seeded UCLA Bruins team that had Markel Walker,
one of my favorite players at the collegiate level.
Arizona had gone 3-15 in conference, but they had enough offensive
ability in Davellyn Whyte, Candice Warthen and Shanita Arnold to give anyone a
game. Although they fell behind 15 points rather quickly, Niya Butts’ squad
scrapped and clawed its way back into the game, trailing by only three at the
half. Down seven with 4:55 to play, the
Wildcats held the Bruins scoreless the rest of the way, this coming from a team
that had trouble guarding anybody.
The climax came in the final half-minute, when Markel Walker
missed a contested layup with 26 seconds to go. Candice Warthen took the Aley
Rohde outlet pass and instead of holding for the last shot said to her coach, “Niya,
I’m gonna race ‘em” and banked in a runner after sprinting the length of the court with the rock to put Arizona up two with 20 seconds to play (2:08 mark in the video).
I was basically encouraging Warthen on-air to slow things down as she charged
past half court and breathed a sigh of relief when it went in not because I was
rooting for the Cats, but because I didn’t want to see such a big mistake in
such a critical part of the game. What a gutsy/ill-advised/amazing play by
Warthen- worked out quite wonderfully for Arizona as the Wildcats scored the
61-57 upset over UCLA.
Sometimes you gotta race, I don’t know.
2. July 10, 2011:
The Cross of a Lifetime
This game features my biggest mark-out moment in the time I’ve
spent watching women’s sports over the years. You know, that moment when you
just lose your mind and go bonkers over an amazing play?
If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about Megan Rapinoe’s cross to Abby Wambach in the 122nd minute to send Team USA
into penalty kicks against Brazil in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Women’s
World Cup (go to the 5:15 mark).
This game had controversy up the ass: There was the penalty
kick that needed to be retaken because the official thought Hope Solo came off
her line to make the stop, eventually evening Brazil up with Aunt Samantha;
there was the pass to Marta, seemingly coming from an offside position, that
gave the Brazilians a 2-1 lead in extra time; and of course, the Brazilians
stalling like worldwide mob figgas in the second extra time period, eventually
costing them the three minutes of stoppage time that allowed for the American equalizer.
That cross by Rapinoe is one of the best crosses I’ve seen
in any level of soccer, and given what was at stake, I probably consider it my
single favorite play in any soccer match I’ve ever watched. As soon as Wambach
headed it into the net, I jumped out of my chair and yelled no fewer than 1,000
expletives, in one form or another telling the Brazilian soccer team that I had
two words for them.
It’s a shame that game, and the World Cup Final one week
later, had to be decided by freakin’ penalty kicks. I wish FIFA would just go golden
goal, even if it did take 180 minutes and kill the athletes; I wanna be entertained.
1. December 30,
2010: The Streak is Over
This had to be one of the biggest pre-season non-conference
games in the history of women’s college basketball. UCONN rolled into Maples
Pavilion with an NCAA record 90-game winning streak, and many figured this was
the Huskies’ best chance to lose in the last 32 months (though Baylor damn near
beat ‘em in Hartford that November). After tying UCLA’s 88-game winning
streak, Geno famously made a comment about the “miserable bastards who follow men’s college basketball”, which in turn sparked one of the most sexist columns I’ve ever read, which in turn led to me putting the writer of the
article on blast on a radio station that had probably 10 listeners at the time.
I’ve never teed off on an individual so much before, or since for that matter.
Anyways, I didn’t see UCONN being able to escape The Farm
with its winning streak intact. The Cardinal had recently dropped a couple of
games to DePaul and Tennessee on the road, but Tara’s Team was and still is
close to impossible to beat at Maples, sporting a 51-game home winning streak
at the time.
The crowd for Stanford women’s basketball games is always
loud, but it was the most electric I had seen the building in years. When
Stanford got out to that 17-4 start, there was more insanity than a Shaun T
workout. Of course, UCONN didn’t go down without a fight and cut the lead down
to 34-30 at the break, but the Huskies never got over the hump. Maya Moore was
defended as well as she had ever been, Jeanette Pohlen played the game of her
life and the Stanford Cardinal knocked off the Connecticut Huskies by a score of 71-59 (David Lombardi has a helluva call on this). There was nothing like being able to watch that game courtside. At a
time I was seriously missing Stanford and the Bay Area (this was when I was
back for Christmas from Northwestern), this game came through for me.
_________________________________________________________________________________
That’s the list. Now excuse while I go rock my Candice
Wiggins Minnesota Lynx jersey to Campbell Park and jack up NBA range threes, play
at-times suspect defense and give up offensive rebounds like it’s my job (that’s
not me knocking Ice’s game, that’s actually how I play basketball).
No comments:
Post a Comment