Soaring Like An Eagle The Courtney Moses Story

The next game was going to be a bit tougher, because they will go to Huntington North and play an in season tournament called the Huntington North Tournament. There, was Kokomo, and they were ranked in the top 5 in the state overall, and ranked #1 in 4-A. Huntington North, who was ranked #6 in the state overall, and #2 in 4-A, was playing Indianapolis Arlington, who was also unbeaten, but not ranked at the time. The place was about half packed for the Huntington-Arlington game, which was won by Huntington North 51-41. When the Kokomo-Oak Hill game started, the place was packed. To the naked eye, all you could see was wall to wall tan colored t-shirts, which were being worn by the Oak Hill faithful. This game was billed as one of the best match-ups early in the season, but Kokomo was picked by almost all the media to win this game. What they didn’t take into account, was no one told Oak Hill they were not suppose to win, so when they took to the court, they looked just like they did the first two games. Boy, If Oak Hill could somehow win one of these games, maybe the hard line critics would shut up about how Oak Hill plays a weak schedule. Kokomo got the ball first, and went down and scored on what seemed a pretty easy basket. They looked at each other as to say, Oak Hill ain’t nothing! After a Oak Hill miss, Kokomo was bringing the ball across the time line. Then it happened. Everyone in the class 4-A camp saw the Courtney Moses everyone at Oak Hill has grown to know. She came from behind the player bringing the ball up the court, and while Meese was hounding her from the front, Moses tipped the ball from behind her, and ran down the court, and hit a lay-up. Then, she stole the ball on Kokomo’s inbound pass and scored another easy lay-up. 4-0 Oak Hill. From then on and for the rest of the game, it became the Meese and Moses show. Both of them had one of their best games of their careers and Kokomo had no answer. Kokomo dropped this one 75-67. Oak Hill now had a victory over the 4-s #1 ranked team, and was now going to play Huntington North for the tournament championship. The girls were ecstatic about winning against Kokomo, but they knew there was a whole lot of basketball to play yet. Huntington North posed a real problem, they had a 6-2 senior center that could play against Pickering, and she would have to hold her own. Then, there were their back court, which was not by any stretch of the imagination a slouch. Oak Hill would have to put forth their best effort so far this year, and after beating up on #1 Kokomo, Huntington North will be on the lookout for the Meese Moses connection. Have you ever known that something was about to happen, but there was nothing you could do about it? That was the problem that faced Huntington North. When the game started, it wasn’t even close, and Meese and Moses showed the state of Indiana that they were for real. Kokomo had felt the wrath of the M+M girls, and now Huntington North was feeling it, but in a different way. Against Kokomo, it was their defense that won the game, but now it was their offense that was defining this game. Moses was hitting her threes, and so was Kristen Hicks. Then when they would double team Moses, Pickering was open down under, and she was hitting her shots. But then when they tried to play zone defense, Oak Hill started to hold the ball, and force Huntington North to come out and guard the Golden Eagles. This is when frustration started to set in on the Huntington North team, and things started to get out of control. When it was over, Oak Hill had defeated a top ranked team within a 24 hour period, and two in a row, by a score of 63-45. The 18 point win was heard around the state, and media reports started to surface all over the state, and on-line what Oak Hill had done. Those reports were starting to stress the play of Meese and Moses, and how this team just buries you with their defense, then out shoots you on the offensive side, and is winning games and an alarming rate. The blogs at John Harrell’s Girls Basketball site were going nuts with reports about what Oak Hill had accomplished. The talk around Indianapolis was that no one could touch Heritage Christian, but everone outside of Indy was starting to favor Oak Hill if that was ever to happen. Blog after blog seemed to fit in one way or another about this Moses girl, and the Oak Hill team. Still, the girls from Oak Hill didn’t read or listen to much of what the media was saying.