Time Out by John Bernhardt

December has come and gone and we’ve started a new year. Before you know it, the days will be getting longer and it will be time for spring training and baseball. Just thinking about an upcoming baseball season makes the winter ahead of us seem manageable. That is, if you’re not a Mets’ fan.

“Kick it to the corner.”

Margaretville alumni and his former girls’ soccer players from around the country, found themselves fondly looking back to their high school years as they learned that legendary Blue Devil soccer coach Dan Cohen had passed away last Wednesday. The former Blue Devil soccer gals were flooded with the quips, the jokes, the stories, and the memories that so typified their warm and fuzzy former coach.

Breathe. Exhale. Breathe. Exhale. Breathe. Exhale. Everybody step back and relax. It’s not the end of the world.

The atmosphere was getting a wee-bit prickly on the sidelines in Delhi at Saturday’s boys’ soccer contest between the host Bulldogs and Margaretville. As Delhi pulled away in the second half, some of the Margaretville faithful began to show the frustration of a winless first week.

Mariah Ruff or Eric Reed would have been in three-point heaven. Every time a shot behind the arc swished through the nets, water splashed from the twines in a several foot, circular, aerial display. It was basketball like it’s never been played before.

“The great players show how much they want to play during the off-season, when it’s hot, when it’s tough, and when no one is watching.” — Tony Alfonso, author of The Mentally Tough Shooting Workout.

It was hot. It was tough, and there certainly weren’t too many people watching. Last week eight future Margaretville varsity basketball players enjoyed a basketball feast in three days of hardwood madness that saw them play nine games over that time. The basketball bonanza was a team camp held at Houghton College, a gorgeous campus located in western New York.