The Last Time You Try

There were more seniors on the 1972 season than there had been any other season during the streak - 6 players, 2 managers, and 1 cheerleader. And, as always happens during any student's graduation year, this group started thinking of the "lasts" that were occurring during basketball season. Our last first home game, our last Tri-county Tournament, our last regular season game, and sadly, we also had our last game of the winning streak.

That loss came to Perry on January 4, 1972. Perry was out to get us. We had played them in Butler in December and come away with a 56 to 51 win. They were quick and they were good. Their coach was quoted in their paper after the December game as saying, "I am not convinced Taylor County has a better ball team than we do." We set out to show him otherwise. By halftime of the fateful game in Perry, we were ahead fourteen points 29 - 15. The third quarter saw a turnaround with Perry scoring quickly and narrowing our lead to six points. Perry went ahead for the first time at 40 - 39 with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter while shooting 61.5 percent from the floor. Our attempts at turning the momentum our way were squelched as Shirley Durham fouled out early in the fourth quarter. The buzzer sounded and our streak was gone. Little was said in the locker room that night. Coach Carter asked if we wanted to go and congratulate the other team, which we did. The Houston County newspaper reported that "the boys game had to be delayed 30 minutes as near pandemonium broke out on the court and in the hallways leading to the gym."

After we lost to Perry, Coach Carter told us that the pressure was off now from the streak; that we had a good ride with it and set a record that would be hard for anyone to beat; and that we still had our number one goal of the season ahead. Our number one goal was to win the state tournament, the fifth in a row for Lady Vikings. On the way to doing that we lost two more games. One was to Warner Robins, who were AAA in state classification; we were A. Then we lost the finals of the sub-region tournament to Haralson County. Coach Carter told us in the locker room after the sub-region loss that if we had to lose a game in the tournaments, this was the one to lose. It didn't send us home, it meant that we'd play the sub-region champ the first night of region. We could still win region and state. After Coach Carter left, we had a players' meeting in the locker room, and decided losing was not fun and that we were not going to do it again. If we did lose again, of course, that would be the worst "last," our last game of basketball for the year. We wanted to play five more games. We wanted to win the semis and finals of region, and three games in Macon at the State Class A Tournament.

It was not an easy feat to get to Macon. We were in a region of Northwest Georgia schools and region was held at Haralson County High School in Tallapoosa, 133 miles from Butler. We had to play Cartersville the first night, the all-important game determining if we would go to the state tourney. I remember looking at the printed program, and Taylor County was listed on the tourney bracket as the Region 4-A South Loser - imagine! We won that game handily 61 to 44 and spent the night in Bremen at the Holiday Inn. Our region finals opponent was Haralson County, our fourth meeting that year and on their home court. It was a hard fought contest, but we managed to win 44 - 41 and the region 4-A title was ours.

We plastered "On to Macon" on the locker room wall with used tape. What we had worked so hard for was in our sights. We would head to Macon for the March 1 - 4 tournament.

Winning the region gave us a bye in the first round, and we handled the second and third rounds, and then met once again our familiar opponent, Haralson County, with the championship on the line. It was a hard fought contest, a defensive contest. It took a while for the forwards to find their mark and Sandra Arnold had to leave the game when she was hit in the mouth. She came back in the third quarter and we pulled ahead to win the game 51 - 45.

Accompanied by a slew of fans with hands outstretched and yelling "Five in a Row!", we accepted our fifth state championship trophy for Taylor County High School Lady Vikings. We seniors had succeeded in making our "last" game as we wanted it to be. After our loss in January, Mrs. Mickey Foreman, our Senior English teacher, gave us a quote from American inventor Charles Kettering, which fit the rest of our season. It read, "The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try."