Cantaloupe Suffer Devastating Playoff Loss

It was a tough scene Monday night as the Fighting Cantaloupe season has officially come to an end as the team falls short of their championship hopes, getting bounced by 3 seeded We Never Practice. In what some are already calling the most thrilling finish in PlayMore history, the Cantaloupe tasted victory in this one only to have it ripped away with just seconds left on the clock but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here.

The game was tightly contested all night, but the Cantaloupe came out hungry holding a lead for the majority of the first half. While their ball movement was a little bit shaky, they anchored down on defense forcing We Never Practice into some tough shots early on. To their credit, We Never Practice made some key adjustments at halftime switching to a man defense and putting an emphasis on crashing the glass against the undersized Cantaloupe who were still without Pondo who had been battling injuries all season (get better soon Pondo). While the Cantaloupe faced some problems in the paint, the second half was still back and forth. Down a handful with under 5 to go, Anthony Butler off a nice dish from Lou came up with his biggest bucket of the year to bring it to a one possession game igniting the packed Fruit Basket. Down two with 2 minutes to go Lou drew a foul after a huge defensive stop to go to the line for a 1-and-1. With the fans holding their breath, he misses the first but in a mad scramble for the rebound manages to come away with his own rebound. With all of this going on, Nick Welsh manages to slip away from his man and Lou finds him for a wide open three putting the Cantaloupe up one and absolutely blowing the roof off Total Turf. With the fans on their feet, We Never Practice went to their best player to try and answer back but Ryan absolutely shuts down his drive to the paint forcing a miss that ends up in the hands of Chris Butler who is immediately fouled as time ticks down.

After a lane violation on the first attempt, Butler would go on to miss his second leading to a quick We Never Practice timeout. With just under 30 seconds to go, they run the same play again their best player trying to drive on Ryan, again being forced into a tough shot that misses, only this time the rebound ends up in the hands of another We Never Practice member who rises above the traffic to tip in the put-back making it a 1-pt game. Cantaloupe timeout. With 10 seconds left on the clock, what could the cunning Coach O’Neill come up with for the final shot? Lou brings the ball down court and pushes towards the lane before firing off a dicey pass to Ryan that’s nearly intercepted. The steal attempt pulls Ryan’s defender out of position though giving the Cantaloupe’s leading scorer an open lane to the hoop. Or so he thought until the tallest player on the other team stepped in to challenge the drive, forcing him into a pull up jumper that would ultimately fall short as the Cantaloupe come up just short in this one losing 46-45.

But when one door closes, another opens and this tough finish to the Summer season will serve as fuel heading into the Fall season which starts up on September 20th. Until then we’ll be here bringing you all of the offseason news and highlights as we have a few contracts expiring and are already eyeing some big free agent signings so be sure to keep an eye out for those announcements.

Written by: Jonathan Abbott

August 25th, 2021