St. John's Basketball: City Title Champions

The best thing about photographing championship games is the emotion of the players right after. I often plot to figure out the best place to be to capture that emotion well before the game is over. It all happens very quickly and is usually over before you know it. I must say...I totally missed it this time.

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DeMatha Basketball: City Title Champions

DeMatha returned to the City Title game for the third straight year and eventually took their third consecutive championship after beating Theodore Roosevelt 52-50 at the Verizon Center in Washington DC. People inquired about the downfall of DeMatha basketball after their 50 point loss to St. Anthony's earlier this season on ESPN. Yet, here they are again winning games and collecting trophies.

I don't have much analysis to contribute about the game, but I do like that each team came out with their solid color away uniforms. Vibrant.

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WCAC Girls Basketball Champs: St. John's

And for my last basketball post of the day, St. John's posing for pictures after they took the title with a 62-54 victory over Good Counsel.

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Bishop McNamara vs. Gonzaga WCAC Boys Semifinal

Gonzaga advanced to the final game beating McNamara 80-63. McNamara guard Marcus Thornton (24), equipped with the purest of jump shots scored 35 points including eight three-pointers. But the real story was the ankle injury to super sophomore Kris Jenkins (2) of Gonzaga. As a result, he couldn't play during the championship game that Gonzaga eventually lost.

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St. Mary's Ryken @ Gonzaga Basketball WCAC Quarterfinal

The end of February and the beginning of March usually kicks off the high school basketball championship season. I shot a few of those games.

In a game that was closer than the score suggests, Gonzaga beat St. Mary's Ryken 65-48. Ryken's missed free throws were the story of the game. Read a blurb about it here.

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Senior Night and Gonzaga's John Jones

Tuesday night marked the last home game of the 2010-2011 basketball season for the Gonzaga Purple Eagles. In most sports, the last home game for colleges and high schools also includes the recognition of the teams' seniors. This was also the case with the Purple Eagles, but with a twist. While Gonzaga head coach Steve Turner recognized seniors Oliver Ellison, Ben Dickinson, Cahli Thomas and Malek Williams, he also honored aspiring high school hoopster and four-year manager John Jones.

Instead of sitting on the bench in khakis and a polo, recording stats and handing out water, Jones suited up, started and played several minutes throughout the game for Gonzaga's varsity basketball team. The fans chanted "We want J!" when he wasn't in the game and his teammates screamed for him to shoot when he was. Gonzaga beat Good Counsel 74-50 and while Jones went 0-2 with 0 points, it was certainly a night for him to remember.

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Way Back Wednesdays: DeMatha, Coolidge and Caron Butler

When I first walked into the Frank R. Williams Center, I thought to myself "this is no place a camera can or should be used". The dark cavernous arena was home of the Coolidge High School Colts and the annual Caron Butler Classic. The Classic was a showcase of local high school basketball teams hosted and sponsored by the former Washington Wizard.

The date was December 4, 2007 and the final game was between Coolidge and Dematha coached by Vaughn Jones and Mike Jones, respectively (both alums of the DeMatha program). I don't remember the fine details of the contest, but according to this video, DeMatha won by two. This photo was taken with a 70-200mm lens at 1600 ISO, 1/320th at f/2.8. The most interesting thing about this picture are the people in it and all the basketball talent that lives in the DMV. From left to right, Philip Green, Derrick Washington (Coolidge), Quinn Cook, and Josh Selby.

Way Back Wednesdays

I was sitting on the sideline of a DeMatha vs. Good Counsel regular season football game on November 3, 2007. At the time, Kenny Tate (now a Maryland Terrapin) was DeMatha's big time player. On the field he played the positions of wide receiver and defensive back very well and on the court he gobbled up rebounds for Coach Mike Jones. I was kneeling about 35-40 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage when DeMatha's QB, Tommy Chroniger, launched a pass toward the sideline. I shifted the camera away from my face, found the ball in the air, found the man he was throwing to and got right back behind the lens. As the ball came nearer and Tate (6) and the two defensive players jumped to action, I pressed down the shutter of my Canon Rebel XT and all of its 3 frames-per-second glory. Tate came down with the football, flipped it to the referee and hi-fived a couple of teammates. I looked down at the LCD screen and hi-fived myself. It was the first action shot that I was truly proud of taking.

Paul VI and the VI Man!

Often in spectator sports, the home fans make a lot of noise and create an atmosphere that give their team a perceived advantage over the visiting team. In football there's the 12th man and in basketball there's the 6th man. But at Paul VI Catholic High School, there is the VI Man. Last Friday, Paul VI played their biggest rival and crosstown competition, Bishop Denis J. O'Connell High School. I photographed both the girls and boys

varsity teams in during their exciting match-ups against O'Connell. The girls were able to pull out a victory but t

he boys were unsuccessful. After giving up the lead shortly after halftime, they never regained it (read about it here). Who knew hundreds of shrieking teenagers could be so

damn loud.

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Dunks and DeMatha

Last night the DeMatha Stags beat the Bishop McNamara Mustangs in front of a packed house at the new Morgan and Kathy Wootten Gymnasium on DeMatha's campus. It was a match-up of two pretty good teams in the area but the game was never really close with DeMatha earning a 64-53 victory. There are plenty of places to shoot in the Stags' new gym but I spent a little over a quarter of the game laying on my stomach trying to replicate the floor remotes used at NBA and college games. I didn't quite hit the jackpot but I was able to make a pretty cool gif animation of Jerami Grant dunking on a defensive minded Mustang. Shout out to two-handed jams...I miss those days.

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Good Counsel Basketball Portraits

Last week I took a trip up north to Olney, MD and the Good Counsel campus but it wasn't to visit the back to back WCAC football champions. This time, I was on official business to photograph the team and individual portraits of the varsity basketball team. Why must teenagers always look so gangsta? Shout out to one light and RH Media Group once again for coming through with the assignment.

Gonzaga DC Classic Dynasty

For the 5th year in a row, Gonzaga College High School has taken the championship trophy home from the Gonzaga DC Classic basketball tournament. They beat a good Charlotte Christian team54-49 in the championship game at Bender Arena. Shout out to hosting and winning your own tournaments (against pretty good out of town teams).

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Phoenix Suns

I spent much of last basketball season shooting purple and orange; the main colors of the NBA's Arizona franchise. This season I predict doing much of the same. Last Wednesday, they actually played each other. Coolidge took another lopsided loss to their locker room (this time to Gonzaga 76-45) but again, the season is in diapers. Shoutout to this rematch in the City Title game...maybe?

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