One of my favorite times of the year is now here.Yesterday started the West Virginia state high school basketball championships in Charleston. The girls tournament started yesterday and runs through Saturday. Locally we weren’t fortunate enough to have a team make it, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. I started attending the state tournament (boys only) back in 1972 on a regular basis. My first tournament was in 1968, when my high school assistant coach Mr.Tom Santrock who was from Charleston took me to watch Charleston High School play in the Championship game. Three of the players on that team ended up playing for the Mountaineers. Those three players Levi Phillips, Curtis Price and Larry Harris led Charleston to the title that year. I will never forget watching them come out for warmups and the whole team slam dunked.

I will be going down tomorrow night to watch the evening session, and then back again on Friday, staying overnight and coming home on Saturday. When I first started going to the event you could get a room at the Daniel Boone Hotel downtown for $29.00 or three nights for $90. We used to put four in a room with everyone pitching in a few bucks. This week I got a room at the Marriott for $175.00 plus tax and parking for a total of $263.86. That was with a discount rate. Throw in a couple meals and $4 bucks a gallon for gas and it comes out to about $350 for one night. Altogether for both days it will set me back over $400 just to watch girls play basketball and that’s without having to pay admission.

I like basketball and let me say some of the best games I’ve watched all season have been girls games. These girls go all out and sometimes they get rough. It’s not the same game it used to be. We used to say on the outdoor court “no blood, no foul.” I believe the girls have picked up on that. Let me tell you these girls today can really shoot the ball. Some of them can knock it down from way beyond the three point line, and they are better at the free throw line than most of the boys. Next week when the boys tournament starts, I’ll need to make sure my credit card is paid. I have a room booked for three nights at $250 per night not including fees and parking. It’s going to be $1,000 or more to go to the state tournament. Back in 1980 I took my wife and kids to Myrtle Beach for a week. We left home with $500 dollars in cash. Stayed five nights in a nice motel on the beach, ate out every meal, went to the amusement park, played putt putt golf nearly every night, bought our gas and still came home with a few bucks. My how times have changed!

In another couple weeks we’ll be watching high school baseball, softball, and track. Let’s hope for good warm weather like we had this past weekend. The Mountaineer baseball team is fun to watch, they have a great stadium and no matter where you sit you have a perfect view. If you get a chance take the short trip and watch a game, it’s a great atmosphere, don’t pass it up. Tyler Consolidated has a good looking baseball team, they will be a handful for everyone they play this year. If things go right you might see your first ever Silver Knight state champion baseball team.

The State wrestling tournament was this past weekend and we had several wrestlers from the area compete. Tyler and Magnolia both put on a good showing despite falling in the event.

Tyler won the Class A sectional game against a good Clay Battelle team in a thriller 48-47 and will now host a tough Cameron team tonight on the home floor. Cameron is 17-6 on the season while the Knights are 15-9. The top seed Dragons fell in an upset to Madonna sending them in the losers bracket to visit Tyler The Winner will advance to the state tournament next week in Charleston.

Magnolia mean while will play in Williamstown tomorrow night against the Yellow Jackets with a chance to head south for th big event next week. Good luck to both teams as they fight for state turnament berths.