After three days of early-morning and late-night basketball, I was ready to head home after finishing my story on Grand Island Central Catholic's loss to Elmwood-Murdock in the Class C-2 state championship game.

I really didn't want to go to Pershing to help my co-worker Dale Miller finish off the final two consolation games of the day.

But I headed to Pershing. It's my job.

When I got there Hampton was up by 20 points with only about four minutes left in the game. The Hawks were about to give coach Jerry Eickhoff a record-setting 649th victory of his 39-year career.

No one in the history of Nebraska high school basketball has won that many games.

The Hampton student section started chanting "649" with about a minute left in the win over St. Mary's, and suddenly there was no where else I wanted to be.

Moments like that are rare. You don't often get a chance to see a state record like that set.

After the game, the NSAA had a short presentation honoring Eickhoff's achievement as the Hampton fans cheered, just like they've been cheering Eickhoff's teams for the past 39 years.

Records for wins, points, rebounds, etc. in a season or in a game are nice. But to me, career achievements are more impressive.

A sustained level of excellence over a long period of time says so much about a person's work ethic and ability.

Congratulations to Coach Eickhoff and the Hampton team. The Hawks went out and won one for their coach even if it was a consolation game.

Those were consolation games at Pershing Saturday night, weren't they?

There has been so much talk about the NSAA's new third-place games. Many people think they are just a way for the NSAA to make more money and that players wouldn't want to play after losing on Friday.

There may be some truth to that, but as I watched Ravenna play Ponca in the Class C-2 consolation Saturday night, it sure looked like those two teams wanted to be there.

The Bluejays gave it everything they had in their 65-55 win. Don't try to tell them that the game was meaningless.

Coach Paul Beranek said it gave the Bluejays one last chance to play together and be together as a team. Beranek, who is battling cancer, was more than happy to be at Pershing Saturday night leading his team in yet another basketball game.

"A year ago at this time, I lost my dad and they gave me six months to live," Beranek said. "But I'm doing well now. I'm the luckiest man on earth."

Saturday's consolation games crew just over 4,600 fans to Pershing Auditorium. At $6 per ticket, that adds up to over $27,000 of added revenue for the NSAA.

It looks like the consolation games are here to stay, so we might as well quit complaining about them and talking about how the players don't want to be there.

The players from both Ravenna and Hampton wanted to be there. That says a lot about the coaches, the players and both programs.

Crusader pride

Coaches go through this every year. At some point, you play your last game and say goodbye to the team forever.

Some of the players will return next year, but there are always some seniors leaving so next year's team will not be this year's team.

You could tell Central Catholic coach Bill Gavers really liked this year's team. The Crusaders won two tough games to get to the Class C-2 final before running into a red-hot Elmwood-Murdock team in the championship game.

Gavers said there was a lot of hurt in the locker room after the loss.

"There were so many guys in that locker room who had a team-first mentality instead of a me-first mentality," he said. "They put their team ahead of themselves and that's what allows you to do what we accomplished this year.

"In a nutshell, we're extremely proud of them. They're a close nit group and I think they have a lot of great memories to look back on."

Unsung hero

You may not have noticed Elmwood-Murdock's Josh Vice, a senior who averaged 0.3 points per game this season.

Vice was one of the last guys to get off the bench in the Knights' victory over the Crusaders, but coach Terry Warner said he's the player who kept the team relaxed all season long.

"We have a senior on our team who is a very loose guy," Warner said after the game. "He doesn't play a lick, but he's a great practice player. He keeps the kids loose in the locker room. I don't even like to go in there because it's like, 'What are they doing?'

"But they come out loose and you have to out here."