Says canceling the game could end up costing Indians

Dear Editor:

About a week ago, the second scheduled meeting between Gaffney and Blacksburg's varsity basketball teams was cancelled.

In my opinion, this move was not in the best interest of both teams involved. Sure, the first game was completely one-sided as Gaffney defeated the Wildcats 101-31. However, the coaches at Blacksburg knew exactly what they were to expect when they agreed to play both games in the season. For some to say that school size was an issue is a false statement. Southside High School, which is in the same region as Blacksburg, defeated this same Gaffney team earlier in the season.

Since this game was cancelled, it was decided the game was to be wiped from both teams' records. This could end up costing Gaffney at the end of the season because it is locked in a tight region battle with playoff implications on the line. One of the tie-breakers used to break ties in region records is overall record, and now with the Blacksburg game gone, that's a disadvantage for Gaffney, which will have one fewer game than the other teams with which they compete.

I attended the Gaffney at Blacksburg game and saw that the main reason for such a lopsided game wasn't Gaffney trying to run up the score. They simply capitalized on mistakes all game long and once the score got high enough, tried to push it to the 100 mark. It's not often that high school teams score 100 points and it's something that all the players wanted to do.

It's certainly unfortunate that Blacksburg was on the short end of such a game. However it wasn't so much Gaffney running up the score as it was Blacksburg failing to score and committing too many mistakes in the second half. This is not a bash on the Wildcats as they do have talented players and athletes, but on that night they were not up to the challenge.

In my opinion, it was a bad move for the game to be cancelled because of the score of the previous game. A coach should have confidence in his team and his own coaching ability to improve his players and teams and if he or she does not, then that doesn't speak very well for the coach or program.
Dustin Martin
Gaffney, S.C.