2016 FBA Season/15.12.29/WIL@PIT/Capsule
Well, folks, I think there's only one way to describe what we just witnessed in the AmeriSteel Forum today. That way?
It was a bloodbath, ladies and gentlemen!
The game started simple enough. Of course, Pittsburgh was trying to keep it easy on Wayne Kirkpatrick (Tasmanian Devil, F), who was nursing an injury, so he played in deep reserve, with Brandon Dreyvus (Opossum, F) taking his place on the starting line. Thus, the first quarter passed without incident, the Keystones pulling ahead by only one point. The second quarter was ground to a halt by Connor Couture (Lynx, F/G) pulling his shoulder, but apart from that it was business as usual, with the Keystones widening their lead. It was a surprising injury, but by the time the third quarter ended with the Keystones extending their lead even further, it had become a distant memory.
And then, right as the fourth quarter began? The Drowning Fishbowl said it best: "Let The Bodies Hit The Floor".
The first blow came when Terrence Tolliver (Pronghorn, G) came down hard on his knee. While it may not have been as bad as the injury of a certain blonde wolf on the Taproots, it was certainly enough to put him out of the game for a long while. Then Sebastian Kosciusko (Toucan, F) went back to the bench, the first casualty of a renewed push by Williamsburg to take advantage of the loss of Pittsburgh's star shooting guard. Despite this loss of their toucan, the Minutemen pushed forward, doing what they could in his absence.
And then, Crystal Summers (Cheetah, G) collided with the Keystones' Shirley Takamoto (Jaguar, F/G) while going for a three pointer. It sent both ladies to the ground, Takamoto walking away with an especially bruised leg, and Crystal being led away as she complained about how her wrist hurt. While Summers did her best to walk off the court with a brave smile, the loss of their starting shooting guard effectively ended Williamsburg's resistance against the Keystones, and even though Dreyvus sat out the game after accidentally cutting his muzzle on the goalpost Pittsburgh was just able to weather the rest of the game to earn a win.
It was a hard-earned win for the Keystones, to be sure, but for both teams this has left a lot of statistical conundrums. All told, Pittsburgh took the harsher blow: Tolliver will be out for thirty days while he recovers, if his trainers are correct. They also lost one of their key starters, even if Kirkpatrick will be back on the starting line after somehow surviving this bloodbath without hurting himself even worse. Williamsburg might have a better chance of recovering: Kosciusko should be able to return to the front lines before their game against Lorain on New Years' Eve, and the only other severe injury is a bench player. Summers will be out for much less time than Tolliver, too, and if she takes it easy Williamsburg will be back in prime condition in no time.
In the meantime, though, they'll both have to deal with the ramifications of this game. Given the all-too-important conference games coming up, they better hope they can push forward with their benches. I have the feeling they both will, but now it's time to let the wounds heal.
Trainers, let's make sure we don't have a bloodbath this intense throughout the rest of the season, okay? That would be nice.
-Will Steinberg, The Miami Trumpeter Property "Home is" (as page type) with input value "Lua error: Cannot create process: proc_open(): Fork failed: Resource temporarily unavailable" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.