I’ve had just about enough of these damn Fabers! Over the past couple years, I have played in a number of three-on-three basketball tournaments, and the biggest thorn in my side has been the Fab Fabers, a group of Hancockians seemingly put on this earth to make my life miserable.
On Saturday, I went into the Hancock Old Home Days tournament with supreme confidence. My usual teammates couldn’t play that weekend, but even with a last-minute lineup shuffle, I had little to worry about — or so I thought.
I assembled what seemed like a dream team. Knowing that the competition was not likely to have many post players, I went big, recruiting former ConVal standout Will Chambers and current Dublin School player on the rise Will Campbell.
We had only three players, while the other teams generally fielded enough to have a substitute as well. At first, though, that didn’t appear to be an issue, despite the hot midday sun at Hancock’s outdoor courts.
After a first-round bye (due to organizer Kary Shumway’s prejudice that I am “the LeBron James of Peterborough”), we took on a team made up of Greg Kriebel, Pierce Rigrod, Scott Daniels and Shumway himself. The other team definitely scored, but we’ll spare them the specifics.
The Fab Fabers were on the other court at the same time, and once they finished their game, that pesky matchup was brought to bear again. Their team features Michael and Paul Faber, Phil Brown and Henry Walters.
There was plenty of intrigue leading into that championship game. I usually count Walters, the Dublin School coach, as one of my go-to three-on-three teammates, but for some reason always teams with the Fabers when it comes to the Hancock tourney. My recruitment of Campbell — who plays for Walters and the Wildcats — was at least in part out of spite. Who wouldn’t want to prove that they could beat their own coach?
Since the field was relatively shallow, I offered that we play best two out of three for the championship. The more basketball the better! But, the Fabers shot my offer down and we went at it for one game with everything on the line.
We started out pretty even, the score staying tight in the game to 11, win by two. As fatigue began to set in, my gameplan was to sag back into the paint and allow my man, Brown, to shoot outside jumpers.
This strategy did not pay off. Brown knocked down three shots from outside the painted area through the course of the game and put the Fabers up. We were down in a hole, 9-7, and needed to claw back.
We evened things at 9-9 with a big jumper by Campbell, but Walters scored two straight and the game was over.
My team had to stand and watch as the Fab Fabers collected their glittering gold trophies, while we settled for silver like we were Team Serbia.
Oh well, there’s always Saturday in New Ipswich to get our squad back on track. And Fab Fabers? It’s not too late to get into that New Ipswich tournament, either, and we are hungry for revenge.
Sports Editor Ben Conant can be reached at 924-7172, ext. 226 or bconant@ledgertranscript.com.