Oh, how the hardihood in the passel had vamoosed. The more tender members of the pack confidently partaking in the exercise of divination, bestowing upon themselves the hindrance of surmising the summation of the final score in the Media Cup that cometh just once in the marking of days based on the Gregorian methodology.

In the alcove of the sports Hacks of The Daily Orange, just eight 60-minute time periods before the commencement of the game, conferences were held, in which said tender members venturesomely declared the potentiality of seizing victory by a margin larger than 19 counts.

But, alas, it was not meant to be. Inside the cupola branded by an air conditioner company in the crossroads of Syracuse, New York, the Hacks begrudgingly fell, 64-50, to the radio fanboys of WAER on the tertiary day of the most curt month, the meeting time having been cemented more than one creation-cycle from the Lord as declared in Testament of Old.

Once again, the Hacks originated their fortress in the form of a trapezoid, each player pervading a unique locus on the floor. The same schematic packaging had impeded the penetration of the fanboys just one orbital rotation ago, forefending the nasally-sounding enemy.

But alas, the trapezoidal alignment didn’t perturb them. The fanboys aimed the spherical leather doohickey through the circular lacuna more propitiously than the Hacks, particularly during the primeval fragment of the merriment. But the Hacks were led by exotic news and business columnist transfer Matthew Gutierrez, the sparkplug assuming the baggage of shepherding the cumber of amassing triumphs on the assailing end.

In the intermission between both moieties, news editor and head coach Michael Burke bestowed upon his valorous warriors the following teaching.

“Hey guys, you played hard,” Burke said. “Why don’t you, uh, just go ahead and take a break right now.”

That achromatic heeding seemed to enflame the Hacks, along with their zealous clan of adherents. As the first tally was warranted by The D.O., the fans fancied the jiffy as one that was proper for which to caterwaul the Hawk Harrelson spiel of, “You can put it on the board, Yes!” a cowl habitually soliloquized in the sports office.

The Hacks mangled back into germaneness, skiving the hem on the scoreboard to a more tamable margin. It was but a certainty that the Hacks would effectuate the rally. Nay, said rally would not see its genesis.

With the man-made inhibiting concept running out, the elder statesmen of the Hacks trudged onto the battlefield to culminate the bout. Senior Staff Writer and protégé of the Post-Standard Jon Mettus flung the Orange Wilson-branded sphere on a perfect crescent and swooshed it through the reticulum for three points.

Said Editor in Chief Justin Mattingly, “That was my favorite part of the night.”

A most unusual juncture came in the residuum of the match. The Hacks and Fanboys gathered as one coterie to document the moment through visual arts and a snapshot.

Burke could be witnessed as saying, “What is this sh*t?” when surveying the image he saw. But, despite the loss, Mattingly felt a different way.

“At the end of the day the nature of the event is a fun one,” Mattingly said. “… I don’t have a problem with taking a group photo. It shows at the end of the day we’re all people, and that’s something that’s kind of lacking across society right now.”

W.F. Whence is a germanificated staff sculptor for The Daily Orange, where he re-germanificated to sculpt this glistening prose.

Published on February 6, 2017 at 12:57 am