The Legend of Whitburn County

Mason was still in charge of the practice, however. He was smiling like the Cheshire Cat, but he was still in charge. "Scrimmage!" he shouted out. "Jared, you're with White." Half of the guys went over to the bench and grabbed red vests and slipped them over their jerseys. It wasn't surprising that Davey, Chris and me were on the White team with Jared.

Jared admitted he was a little tired from playing intramural ball that night, but he was energized when he saw all the students waiting for him in the fieldhouse. And Jared put on a show for them. Chris and I just kept feeding him passes, and he kept shooting away and made basket after basket. His "D" was tenacious, and when he swiped the ball away from sophomore guard Jason Wiemer, he took the ball down the court, launched himself and slammed the ball home with a two-hander. I knew he could do it, but it was the force with which he did it that energized the crowd.

At that point, Mason knew he was beat. He whistled practice over, and told everyone to be there tomorrow night for the game against St. George's.

The electricity in the air was intense at the Fieldhouse. Everyone knew this was it, the return of the Jared Thompson. And he did not disappoint. He rattled off 12 points in the first period, and we dominated against his old school, 94-28. He went for a team-high 42 points, and even Gerrold came up to shake his hand after the game. The win put us back in a tie for the last tournament spot, but we'd have to win our last home game of the year to clinch the tie breaker. We beat Marshall in our previous meeting, and if we lost to them, they would have the tie breaker of most recent win. That didn't happen. Jared had another 40 points — in the first half. He sat out for the entire second half as we registered our first ever 100-point game in school history, 107-53. Davey and Chris each had 20 points, and I added 18. We didn't even score in the last three minutes of the game, we were that far ahead. Coach Mason put everyone in, and even Wiemer (who had warmed the bench most of the season) managed to hit a trey for the 100th point of the game.

The last game at St. George's was a tough one. Some of the people in Thompsonville were still upset over Jared's tryst, and the students even tried rattling him when he was introduced by throwing condoms out onto the floor. Jared's response was to break the school record that he never got a chance to break at St. George's — he scored 51 points to lead the Panthers over the Crusaders, 98-58. Chris scored 20 behind Jared, and actually claimed the scoring title away from Davey for the season. He knew, however, who the real scoring leader of this team was.

Jared felt vindicated after the game when Gerrold told a reporter for WHIT that "Thompson is probably the greatest player ever to play in this fieldhouse. Bar none."

The last win vaulted us into the tournament as the sixth seed. We would have to go up against #3 Oxford Lakes in the quarterfinals, as the top two teams got a bye in the first round. The Lakers didn't have a chance against us, and we beat them soundly behind Jared's 38 and my 24. Two days later, we would play Woodfield in the semifinal game at Woodfield Athletic Center, immediately after the other semifinal between Newsburg and Shoreland. Newsburg handily defeated Shoreland, and we went into hostile territory against the Woodfield Eagles.

Whitburn hadn't beaten Woodfield in basketball in about a decade at that point. But Jared, Chris and Davey all had played Woodfield, and told Coach Mason that the way they beat them years ago could work again. He agreed, and emphasized to everyone on the team to let Jared and the St. George transfers to dictate the tempo of the game.

What he didn't expect was how slow that tempo would be. Woodfield was stubborn on not letting us get inside for any shots, and they were guarding close to deny the trey. We won the opening tip-off, but couldn't work it inside for the entire first period. Davey and Chris took a couple of shots, but they missed and either Jared or I grabbed the rebound and shot it back out to reset the play. The last shot of the period we took missed, and the score was still tied at nothing after eight minutes of play.

The Woodfield fans weren't too happy about our stalling, but Eagles' coach Rod Maryland was getting more and more upset at his charges. Neither team had any fouls, so Jared just suggested, "Let's let them get into foul trouble. Maryland's gonna try to press us, we just draw fouls and then kill them with free throws."

We went out to start the second period with Woodfield getting the ball on the alternating possession rule. They took the ball down the court, set up for a three on the outside with a screen that left Jose Gonzalez (Miguel's brother) wide open. He put the shot up - and missed. Jared came down with the rebound, and tried to wait for the Eagles to clear out defensively. Instead, three of the Woodfield players surrounded Jared and reached in. The ref blew the whistle for the foul, and moved the ball to mid-court. Davey got the ball, wedged it in past the Woodfield defender to Jared, who turned around and whack! Another foul. Jared shot a look at the Woodfield bench at Coach Maryland. Then he glanced over to Coach Mason, who just motioned with his hands to settle down.

Jared looked at me, pointed to the sideline with two fingers, and nodded. I knew exactly what he wanted to do. He slipped back to the opposite sideline, waited, then slashed to the basket and leaped. I launched the perfect alley-oop pass to the basket, and he grabbed it and slammed it down. The Whitburn fans went wild.

The Eagles tried to in-bound, and Jared went right after the ball carrier. He got whistled for the foul, and this time it was Woodfield's turn to get the ball from center court. The pass was tipped in the air by Davey, but the Eagles recovered the ball. They didn't rush things, taking a page from our book. However, after two attempts at screening out for a three and missing, Gonzalez had enough. The third time, he took the screen and drove towards the baseline and shot. The ball banked in off the glass, and Woodfield was on the board. We'd managed to keep them scoreless for nearly 12 minutes, though. Jared took the in-bound pass from Davey and was immediately set upon by two Eagle defenders. Another foul, another possession at half-court. Davey tossed the in-bound pass to me this time, and I went to pass to Jared. Gonzalez took off and intercepted it, ran down the court and went in for the uncontested lay-up.

Except for one thing — he missed the lay-up. The ball went clanging off the back of the rim and back into my waiting hands. I grabbed the ball, turned and fired a baseball pass to Jared. Gonzalez was scrambling to get back to our side of the court, but I picked him up. Jared drove the lane, shot and drew the foul - as the ball drained the net.

Jared calmly went to the line and sank the free throw to make it 5-2 with less than four minutes left in the half. Woodfield went down the court, worked it in and Gonzalez sent up a 15-foot jumper to pull the Eagles within one.

Predictably, the Eagles fouled us on the in-bound pass for the fifth team foul. That was the last foul they had to give. We got the ball at mid-court again, and Davey set up the rotation to Jared. Jared backed the ball in, and we set up to stall. They went back into a 2-3 zone, and tried to keep us from launching a three. Jared was patient. He knew that we still had the one point lead. We did the stop-and-handoff play a few times, getting the clock down to about a minute to go. The Woodfield fans were booing us unmercifully.

Then, suddenly, with about 45 seconds to go, Maryland yelled out, "Amoebae!" Suddenly, every Woodfield player pulled back from their position towards the middle. Jared looked at me for a second, set up and fired a three from the top of key. The ball swooshed through the net, and we were up 8-4. On the in-bound play, Davey went after the ball and hacked the Eagle player. Second team foul. We pressed them on the in-bounds, and Woodfield Junior Tim Waterson had to call a time-out before the five-second rule was called.

There were 39 seconds left on the clock. Coach Mason just said one thing in our huddle - "Zone." We broke the huddle and went back out on the court. We laid off the in-bound pass, set back in the zone, and kept them away from the basket. They worked it around, tried to set up for a clear-out, but couldn't do it. As the seconds ticked down, Gonzalez tried a last-second drive to the basket, but got called for the charge on Davey. It was the Eagles' sixth team foul, and we were in the bonus with five seconds left. What was worse for Woodfield was that it was Gonzalez's third personal foul.

Davey went down to the free throw line, and sank both free-throws to make it 10-4. Waterson lobbed a pass down court to Gonzalez, who took a last-second off-balance shot that bounced wildly off the backboard at the buzzer.

We got the ball back for the third period, and it was more of the same. They had five fresh fouls to use, and they used them quickly. All five of their starters had at least two fouls three minutes into the third period. And we still hadn't taken a shot in the half. After the fifth foul, Maryland called time-out, then put three of his bench players out on the floor. Jared smiled when he saw these three guys. So did Davey and Chris. I looked at Jared, sort of puzzled. He mouthed to me, "Jay-Vee!" and put up three fingers and two fingers. It suddenly dawned on me - these were the JV guys he and St. George's JV had beaten badly two years ago. Jared made some hand signals to Davey and Chris, and Chris in-bounded the ball to Jared. Chris immediately switched over to the opposite side, where Davey had been. Both took their defenders with them, and Jared drove the crease that opened up. Easy lay-in, 12-4.

Maryland started pointing around like a madman. Waterson in-bounded to one of the "JV" players, and Jared just slapped the ball cleanly out of his hands and turned and laid the ball in. 14-4. We all came up, following Jared's lead, and pressed the Whitburn bench players as hard as we could. I got in the face of one of them, and got called for the reach. We kept pressing on the in-bounds play at half-court, and one of the bench players, a tall skinny kid, dribbled the ball off his foot and out of bounds. We took over possession, and brought the ball in uncontested. I gave the ball to Jared, and he dribbled around over to the right. Davey then came up, got the ball from Jared, and executed the perfect give-and-go. Jared laid it in to put us up by a dozen.

That was it for Maryland. He put Gonzalez back in, along with their Senior point guard, Gary Kriesz. That didn't help them much. They couldn't work it in, and Gonzalez got frustrated and tried to elbow his way in to the basket. The ref called the foul, and the recipient, Chris, went to the line. He sank both to put us up, 18-4. Maryland sent in the rest of his starters (Marty Mathews and Abdul Muhammad), but we were ready for them. We dropped back, and Jared even struck a "bring it on" pose, beckoning the ball carrier to come down the court. They worked it around, launched a three and finally scored their first points of the half.

We had confidence on our side, though. Davey brought the ball up the court with purpose, then passed it over to Chris. Chris dribbled, worked it in a bit, then passed it to me. I worked it around to Mike Martino, our "big man" in the middle. He made a perfect pass to Jared in the clear, who let loose with a trey — and made it. 21-7, Panthers. They scored once more, and Jared sank another trey before the period was over, making it 24-9 through three periods.

Woodfield got the ball on the alternating possession rule to start the period. Waterson made the in-bound pass to Gonzalez, who took it up the court. And that was when things blew up for Woodfield. Gonzalez went up for the shot and was called for a rather obvious elbow to the face of Mike. The ball went in, and when the ref waved off the basket, Gonzalez went absolutely freaking nuts. Mike was on the floor, holding his nose, while Maryland was trying to restrain Gonzalez. After a while, the ref had enough and slapped the "T" for technical on Gonzalez. It was his sixth, so he was gone, regardless. Two assistant coaches had to nearly drag Gonzalez off to the locker rooms.

Coach Mason called a time out, and our trainer and some EMT's from Woodfield Rescue Services worked on Martino. Mike got up, with blood droplets on his jersey, and managed to walk dazedly back to the bench. The EMT's walked him over to the side door where the ambulance was waiting, and they took him to the hospital.

The rest of the game wasn't pretty. Jared took all four free throws for Mike, and sank all four to make it 28-9. We exchanged possessions and baskets, and when the buzzer sounded, the final was 42-21. Jared had 30 points, he dished off four assists in the final period to get Chris, Davey and me all up to four points each.

The best thing was, we were heading for the conference finals against Newsburg.

The finals were a dénouement (that's one of those big words I got from Katie) for us, of sorts. We came out gunning against Newsburg, and won it handily, 56-38. Jared didn't play the last six minutes, since we were up by 18. We were awarded the conference trophy, cut down the nets and had a healthy post-game celebration over at Jared's place. Best thing of all was that Mike's broken nose was healing properly. He'd be ready to play in the State Tournament (even though we started calling him "Jason" for his protective mask).

Then we found out who we'd be playing in the first round of the tourney: Lakeside Washington. They were undefeated on the season, a perfect 24-0 on the season. They also hadn't lost a single game by less than eight points all season. We were ranked as the number eight seed in the tournament, and thus drew the number one seed in the first round. Unlike the ISAA Tournament, the HSAA didn't re-seed pairings after each round. Instead, the winner of 1 vs. 8 played the winner of 4 vs. 5, while the winner of 2 vs. 7 played the winner of 3 vs. 6.

Lakeside had a lot of decent players, but the scary guy was Conrad Horton. He was already an All-American player, and he had a scholarship to go to North Carolina to play for Dean Smith. Horton was the one who just dazzled everyone. When we went down to Morgantown for the tournament, the State Journal listed him as one of the top three players in the state. The other two were Morgantown West's Barry Thomas and Jared's old foe, Riverton North's Mitch Jordan. Not a word was said about Jared.

The tempo of the game was set from the opening tip. We got the ball, and Jared took the ball in. Horton guarded Jared closely, but didn't really see him as much of a threat. Jared gave him a head-fake, juked and drove and sank the lay-in. Horton took the ball down the court, and did the exact same thing. This went on for most of the rest of the game: the rest of us touching the ball momentarily, then Jared and Horton going into their game of one-on-one. The score was tied at 16 after one, then 24 after two, then 40 after three. All of the points came from the two of them.

Before the fourth quarter, Jared pulled me, Chris and Davey aside. "I don't know if he's got much of a supporting cast," he told us. "I'm going to try to work the ball to you guys, then clear him out. See if you can get around the others."

Washington took the in-bound for the fourth quarter. Horton brought it down, and instead of finding Jared on him, I was guarding him. He half-sneered at me, and promptly drove the basket. Jared planted himself at the side, and Horton didn't see him. Wham! The two of them went crashing into the Whitburn cheerleaders behind the basket. Tami managed to catch Jared, but Horton went barreling into the post of the basket. He stepped back, woozy for a moment, then turned around to see the ref pointing at him.

He then walked over to the bench, apparently groggy from the encounter with Jared. The coach hastily called a time out, then grabbed Horton by the shoulder to try to ask him why he was leaving the game. That was when he passed out, right into the arms of his coach.

After that, we lit up the rest of the Washington squad. We ran off a dozen unanswered points before Washington could even realize what happened. They managed to get Horton back to his senses, but he didn't have the same effect when he went back in. He managed to get off a jumper to get back within 10 points, but then we went on another tear. We scored 10 more unanswered points, without Jared taking a single shot. After we took a 62-42 lead, Jared signaled for time and took himself out of the game. Horton seemed to think it was going to be his time to take the game over, but Chris, Davey and me put on a clinic, scoring another dozen points. The final score was 74-44. Horton had scored all 44 of his team's points. Jared also scored 44 - but it was the rest of us who beat Lakeside Washington.

Afterwards, it was discovered that Horton had a mild concussion from the collision with the basket, and couldn't concentrate for the rest of the game. The concussion was what eventually led to him losing his scholarship at UNC. He apparently developed double vision, and couldn't tell which basket to shoot at.

Morgantown West had won their quarterfinal game against Marbury Central, and it looked like it was another case of one great player (Barry Thomas) and 11 other guys. Jared tested that theory early instead of late in this contest, and it became painfully obvious that Thomas was the only offense Morgantown West had. Though the partisan crowds at MSU Fieldhouse were vocal, Thomas couldn't shake Jared's tenacious defense. He limited Thomas to only 12 first half points, while we lit up the rest of the West squad for 24. Jared was working so hard at containing Thomas that midway through the third period, he only had 10 points. Thomas, however, was stuck at a dozen, and would get only four more. The rest of the West squad only had four points, while Chris, Davey and me poured it on. With a minute to go, we were up 50-24. Coach Mason sat all of us down and put in the reserves. The reserves promptly scored four times in the last minute to give us a 58-24 win. Jason Wiemer scored twice, including the last bucket on a steal of — amazingly — Barry Thomas.

We went nuts when the horn sounded. We were going to be the first Whitburn High team to play for the state title in basketball in school history. What's more, we were going to be going up against Riverton North — and Jared had a score to settle with Mitch Jordan.

The joy of victory wasn't going to last long, though.

The Morgantown State Journal was the first to publish the information about Jared's "expulsion" from St. George's. They even found out that Tami was "still" on the Whitburn cheerleading squad. They had the photo of when Jared had fallen into the crowd after colliding with Horton, and noted that "the girl who was apparently involved in the incident causing his expulsion was the one who caught him."

As soon as Jared heard about this, he gave a copy of the Journal to his Uncle Jerry. Mr. Thompson proceeded to call up the paper and inform them that they were being sued in Whitburn County court for libel against a minor.

The revival of the whole incident turned a time that should have been special into one of anger. Phone calls to Tami and Katie's house were coming from various papers who wanted to confirm the story. Some TV reporters, including this Geraldo Rivera-like creature from Riverton's WRTN-TV who tried to "ambush" Tami as she was leaving for Morgantown for the championship.