Published: March 16, 2008 12:24 am      

HUTSELL: Braves just a great story to be a part of

SOUTHPORT — Sometimes, I just don’t like my job. Guess that makes me an American, right?

There are times when I just get down. The phone calls, the e-mails, the hours. Just doesn’t always seem worth it.

Sometimes though, things can creep up on you. They can happen and make me realize that I’m lucky

You never know when they’ll happen, you just sit back and enjoy every minute of the ride.

That just happened to me again. The Borden Braves happened.

Before Saturday’s 59-41 loss to Indianapolis Lutheran became the final chapter on a storybook journey, 12 young men turned from mere basketball players to life-long celebrities in their home town.

These past few weeks weren’t just victories in basketball games, these were moments that will always live on, forever stitched into the fiber of a community that had always craved occasions such as the ones that actually unfolded in front of them.

Kids come and go, they graduate and move on to bigger and perhaps even better things. But for a few short weeks, a group of teenage boys, some hardwood, a ball and a hoop galvanized a town that had been battered and bruised by the basketball gods for ages.

Seeing what the team accomplished, erasing decades of frustrating sectional losses and following that act with a regional title made mere kids into legends.

From today forward, Borden will always have Lee Kirchgessner’s 21 points against Henryville in sectional. They can talk all night about Chris Beam’s 3-pointer that seemed to ice a hard-fought win over Lanesville. They can say they were there the night the decades-long sectional drought finally concluded against South Central.

Lucky ones will remember Alex Ooley snatching victory from what looked like the grips of sure defeat against Barr-Reeve. And they can recall where they sat the moment Kaden Nolot put them in front for good in the regional final against Orleans.

Saturday may not have been a memorable way to wrap up the story of the ages for the people of Borden.

The Braves played pretty good for a half, but the shots that were falling finally stopped, and the buzzsaw known as Indianapolis Lutheran kept picking up steam and left Borden in a cloud of dust.

When the third quarter ended and the Saints’ Jared Broughton drained a one-time-out-of-100 3-pointer from about 30 feet, you could see the storybook tale was wrapping up.

As the seconds expired and Lutheran celebrated, Borden cried.

Not just the team, but the entire town. It wasn’t necessarily crying over the loss, it was seeing the end of something special. It was realizing that the surreal moments had evaporated and it was time to return to reality. The alarm clock finally sounded on the dream.

It’s a story that will never be forgotten.

I feel lucky. Thanks Borden. Thanks for letting me be one of the lucky people to tell it.

Contact Mike Hutsell at mike.hutsell@newsandtribune.com