[The Guru]

From what I heard this was about the best game JC has played all year...Congrats...

Russell played without O'koro who did not make the trip due to illness...No excuses, Russell had the game won, up by 8 with about 3 mins left...Some poor decision making with the lead cost Russell tonight...To travel out of region, without 1 of the top players in the 16th region & lose by 2 is disappointing but not the end of the world...Give JC credit...They gave great effort and caught Russell at far less than 100%...

BTW, Fortman led the way for Russell with 37 points...Russell also got some big minutes from freshman Ginny Ferguson who ended up with about 10 points in her first major action of the season before fouling out...

One more observation...Overall I thought the officiating was pretty good although much tighter called than our last few trips to the 15th...No major complaints, it was consistent all night & the refs had no real effect on the outcome...But I will say this, between the 2 of them, they stopped by the Russell bench at least 4 times to apologize for calls they felt they made incorrectly...I guess it is nice to do that but if you blow it, just let it go...You can't change it after the fact...Again, I'm not complaining about the job they did but I just found that interesting...

Congrats to JCHS.
Although after I found out that Okoro didn't play, I am not nearly as shocked, she is the best inside presence I have seen this year.
Fortman can play inside but is much more suited to facing the basket. Would have like to have watched this one.