Casper College T-Birds Win In Overtime

It's the final regular season game for the Casper College men's basketball team. Plus they had to go on the road to play it. Plus it was played in one of the harshest environment's in  the Region IX Conference. Western Nebraska's Golden Dome. The scene of years of incredible junior college basketball going back to three different coaches for the T-Birds. All of this should have spelled out a road loss for Danny Russell and the Casper College T-Birds. You know where I'm going with this right? The officiating was off the hook. Western Nebraska was taking hammers to the T-Birds and the Birds couldn't get a call. However Russell's Birds didn't help them selves. Terrible defense in the first half created a 34-28 deficit at half time. Russell struggled in the first half finding a group that was clicking. Don't know what was said in the locker room but the T-Birds ears were all red in the second half. End of the first half? 70-70. Let us go to over time. The Birds shot 40% from the field; 50% from the land of three; and (get this) 78% from the charity  stripe. The Birds have a guy. Every team has "a guy." But the Birds guy was better than all the Western Nebraska guys put together. Hakeem Rogers. Two seconds on the clock. Casper College needs a three to win. From the land of the NBA threes Rogers swishes a three for a winning 82-81 victory to lift the Birds to a huge road victory. Rogers finished the night with 9 of 16 from the field. He scored 29 points in 25 minutes. You do the math. The men's team will start Region IX play this Saturday at Swede Erickson T-Bird gym at 5:00 pm. What would be nice is that fans show up to support this great group of athletes. The game can be heard on our sister station AM 1400 ESPN at 5pm.