GAME 1 RECAP (vs Bricks): Spring Season Begins with Love, Hate, & Castration

A one point loss in overtime for a 1st game of the season is a tough loss for any team. A respectable loss. A heartbreaker even. A one point loss in overtime for the 1st game of the season against a team with only four guys, a girl about the size of one of Russ' kids, and blowing a 12 point with a squad of 9 guys, is _______ . I'll leave it to you to pick your own derogatory term, I'm sure they'll all fit in this scenario. But how does this happen? Were we hypnotized by this jeezebel? Did we slack off on purpose because they had a girl? Did the refs give them favorable calls because of their handicap? Were one of the refs bedding this hussy? Well, lets just recap this catastrophe shall we...

The 1st half started well for Sofa King Awesome. Making his long awaited return from his brief sabbatical en Deutchland, Robert Zee Wunderkind Loef, was hitting his patent 10 foot jumper like he was never deported. We were off and running. We slowly exploited their weakness, and yes, I'm talking about the girl on their team. Unfortunately for Sofa King Awesome, the rust settles in quick after being off for 3 weeks, and normally easy shots were not falling. Like layups and shots two feet away from the basket. Our failure to finish allowed The Bricks to linger by half time.

In the second half, Sofa King Awesome applied a little muscle and took a 12 point lead. Great pressure up top caused turnovers, especially Mad Max Linsky who slyly stole and inbound pass 2 feet under the basket for a quick lay-in. Sofa King Awesome seemed to be in full control, but true to our nature, we fell asleep behind the wheel. More like passed out like one does from excessive celebrating with a bottle of vodka, roofies, and your favorite sorority girl. A series of bad turnovers followed up with lackadaisical defense allowed their 2 scorers to start draining three pointers. Then came the fouls and the technical fouls. Then things started to really unravel. The refs no longer liked Ray Artest Ko, for some reason or another and refused to give us any calls. Maybe it was when Ray bounced the ball off the other guys head that put it over the top. 12 points turned into 6 points which surreally shortly turned into a tie game. With seconds winding down, a horrible pass by your El Captain almost lead to an break away, thank god, I redeemed myself by blocking their final shot in regulation, but the damaged was done. The momentum had switched. It was a tie game.

In overtime, we really couldn’t get any calls. Russ looked like he was auditioning for the remake of The 3 Stooges, as he was slapped, grabbed and poked in the eyes while pulling down rebounds. The Bricks only true baller, stayed poised under pressure and hit his outside shots. For the first time in the game we were actually losing. After a stint of back and forth near misses the score managed to stayed tie. With time winding down again, a loose ball scenario was in effect, a pass was deflected straight up into the air, Rob and I both went up for the ball and the mid air collision jarred the ball loose into the hands of the best player on The Bricks, he B-lined it for the basket, pulled up for a jumper and Ted Pedigree Smith, tried to tickle the opponents funny bone and was called for a foul with one second left. The Bastard made the 1st, which put them up by one. He missed the second, which was just enough time to kill the clock before we could call a final time out.

Final Score. Good Guys – 48; Bad Guys - 49

Highlights:
Andy “FNG” Pascal with a clutch basket and one to put us back on top when things were starting to unravel. Remember though, free throws win games boys. That goes for everyone, not just Pascal who could of sealed it for us! Oh and did I say Welcome aboard Andy! - Ray "Two in a Row" Ko with his second technical in back to back games, and a shout out to the refs after the loss, "you guys are by far the worst refs of all time. Of any sport. In the history of sports. Do you even know the rules? The ones in that giant book called the Rule book? I’m going to stab you both in the neck after the game. Just wait. Outside in the parking lot. You’re going to taste steel bitch.” Haha. Oh Ray, you’re so dramatic sometimes. - The Asian girl on the other team, yelling at Ray to “stop grabbing her!” was pretty funny, and by funny I mean disturbing. Got a little akward out there on the court. Even the refs weren’t sure what to do with that one. - And finally Russ's kids repeating and repeating, "I can't believe you lost to a girl."

Since we reached an all time new low, there is no where to go but up. We have 3 options, we get back on that horse after re-attaching our balls, or we steal the horse’s balls, attach them to where our balls used to be and use them going forward or we get boob jobs and join an all women's bowling league and never speak of basketball or this game again.

Next game is Next Wednesday at 9:15pm vs Prestige Worldwide. O’Shea HS, 77th between Columbus and Amsterdam. See you there ladies!

-Soy Capitan

Ladies and gentlemen,

Last night was the final hurrah for the long, bitter cold, yet slightly refreshing Winter Season of Sofa King Awesome. Your favorite amateur mediocre basketball team took on the team Trade Supply(6-5), a group of blue collared wood sanders who have their own show on HGTV called Sandy Bottoms. These callused hand construction workers had a quick start to the game, hitting their shots from the outside and going on an 8 – 0 run to start the game, but enough was enough, and Sofa King Awesome finally started to add a little rain of their own. Our defense started to pressure their fat fingered guards into turnovers. Mad Max Linsky was like the four armed Indian diety Ganesh (minus the giant elephant head), as he blocked, stopped, and stole multiple passes from getting by him. With our defense pressuring the ball, we started to run the floor more and really take advantage that their 6th man stepped in poo outdoors and was not allowed to put his stinky feet onto the court until it was completely wiped off. On offense, Divino “Big Hair or go Home” Paran, dominated with big drives to the hole, and sinking about 90% of his free throws at the line. By half time we had a nice lead 20 – 12.

The second half wasn’t so pretty as each team went scoreless for what seemed like the 1st ten minutes of the half. With time winding down fast, as most late night games do since the refs want to get home, the sophisticated game that we usually play turned into a sloppy, free for all, hack fest, with elbows, turned ankles, and flagrant fouls. Lets face it, that’s the way we usually play minus the flagrant fouls. But the refs weren’t calling any fouls on either side, so Ray “Bam Bam” Ko decided to test the limits with a WWE inspired back elbow which made the refs finally blow there whistle. Trade Supply inched within 5 points, but aggressive team play by all Sofa Kings stopped their momentum and forced them to foul to stop the clock only to put Mr. Consistent Divino Paran on the line again to seal the deal.

Highlights
- Big Don Stud Janocha fighting threw 3 defenders for a big rebound and put back.
- Nice non verbal communication between Soy Capitan, who sent a bullet pass to Mr. Inspiration Russ Ringelstein, who stepped behind his defender
for an easy lay in.
- The Ref explaining to Ray that he would of taken him outside if Ray had intentionally fouled him as hard as he did our opponents
- A Nice feed from Maxie to Dom “the Other” Paran under the hoop, only to get jammed up underneath the rim and pass to himself.
- Max, Divino, and Russ getting slapped around, poked in the eyes, and kicked in the shins yet no foul was called.

Final Score Good guys 34 – Bad Guys 28.

Winter Season Recap:
After a gruesome 1 – 6 start, we ended up finishing out the season with a 5 game winning streak and ended up as we usually do at 6–6 (.500). Actually since we played an extra game this season that didn’t officially count on the books, “unofficially” that makes us 7-6 which finally allows us to have an unofficial winning season. Congratulations guys…unofficially of course.

A Sofa King Awesome Thanks to:
- Ryan, Jake and Julia our biggest and only fans under the age of 12 (and our only fans to boot) who come out to every one of our games, warm up with us, keep score occasionally, and cheer us on in hopes of getting nachos and beer after each game.
- To Coach Russ Ringelstein for always verbally inspiring us like Bobby Knight, but out of love, doesn’t beat us like Bobby Knight.
- To all our subs who helped us fill in the empty man holes when we were short on guys. That just sounds dirty.
- Eddie The Philanthropist for his generous donation to the team, his one game played, and for posting this on the blog.

Spring Season begins the week of April 12th – So keep tuned for the next round robin and Sofa Kings Awesome Quest for Glory or to At Least Reach the Playoffs! Whichever comes first.

Keep Shooting
- Soy Capitan

Game VIII Recap: Sofa King Awesome The Musical:

If our last game was a musical this is how it would've begun:

Interior : A dimly lit basketball gym

On the far end of of the court. A multi racial hodge podge of douche bags, also known as IFS, run carefree layup drills.

A loud shoe SHREIK, IFS freezes mid drill, their ball drops as they stare towards the sound. The ball rolls across the court under the foot of:

3 Shadows (Stage Right) standing in the doorway. They step onto the light court. It's Sofa King Awesome. Angry Glances are exchanged the music begins...

..."Snap, Snap, Snap" and then they dance!

Our last game of the season, was very much like a dance off between the Jets and the Sharks except without the pompadours. IFS was looking to the make the playoffs, we were trying to end the season was a 4-4 record, and crush their dreams. The game started off with the pre game choosing of a game ball. The center for IFS took our ball and kicked it off the court like an 6th grade bully as he proudly wore a mesh tank with the name Bear Sterns on it. We knew then, that he was a douche bag, and that their whole team were probably douche bags, and thus began a new rivalry in the legacy of Sofa King Awesome.

The game started off well for us. We were moving the ball, working it down low to our big men, Rob, Russ and Don, and hitting our outside shots respectively. IFS kept the game close by utilizing their jerk off center, Bear Sterns, and their speedy Kobiashi asian point guard. Bear Sterns was playing dirty, dropping his shoulder, leveling our players, complaining to the refs, so Sofa King Awesome, answered back with foul after foul on just him, thus infuriating Bear Sterns to throw the ball point blank at our "Duetsche Center," Rob. A technical fouled followed, and then on the next play, Bear Sterns got the ball again, and Ray "Elbows" Ko answered with another foul in the form of a hug. Bear Sterns totally lost it, just like their stock, and the refs had to warn him, one more outbreak and he was gone. As the second half winded down, your capitan hit the ugliest three pointer from way beyond the arc i have ever seen, banking it home and giving us an 8 point lead going into the second half.

As we ended the 1st half with an ugly bucket, so did our game play that followed. Our 8 point lead was erased because of turnovers. We lost our rythym, and couldnt hit our shots. IFS crept back on easy buckets from bad plays and easy fast break layups. The game was close, defense became tight, shots were few and far between, the tensions rised, the fouls increased, the physicalness climbed, and as Ray Ko stood with ball raised guarded face to face by Kobiashi at the top of the key, Ray swung his body to the right, and CRACK, Kobiashi was on the floor holding his face. Ray's elbow caught the left temple of Kobiashi, and laid him out. The CRACK heard round the gym, is what begun the newest rilviary in NY Urban Men's Professional Basketball league. A woozy Kobiashi immediately walked off the court, threw off his jersey into the stands, and threatened one of our own. "Ill be waiting for you outside," he cried, while the rest of us kind of laughed, the refs kind of laughed, and even IFS must of thought, i'm not getting into a fist fight over basketball.

The next posession we had, IFS tried to retaliate. Divino held the ball, and an IFS latino player who is about 6 inches shorter than Divino tried to elbow him by jumping in the air and throwing elbows because he was too short to hit divino anywhere besides the ribs, as he unsuccessfully tried to elbow divino, he slipped fell, and then wrapped himself around Divino's legs, as D dragged him across the floor. The game then began a hack fest, with everyone fouling everyone, the last 10 minutes of the game were pretty much all foul shots, and in the end we let the game slip away from us, because of rushed shots, and bad turnovers, and lots and lots of fouls.

Highlights

- A beautiful give and go from Russ "The Boss" Ringlestien to Divino "The Highlight" Paran streaking down the middle and scoring over a member of IFS.

- Don "Drop Steps" Janocha, once again showing us how elevated his game is getting by scoring from behind the backboard, and fouling out of the game.

- Rob "No No, No drinks for me, I got a date" Loef with some sweet jump shots in the middle, some big blocks, bigger fouls, and a hot date waiting for him at the end of the game.

- Eddie "Troublemaker" Larios with great defense pressure on both sides of the court, surprising the competition.

- Ray "the Hitman" Ko, leveling the competition and giving out fouls in forms of hugs.

Final Score: Good Guys - 42; Bad Guys - 50 and our Season Record: 3 - 5

Even though we had our first losing season this year, collectively as a team we continue to learn how each other play and get better, and better. We just have to be more consistent during our closer games, we have the talent to go further, but sometimes once we get a lead, we sit back on our haunches and guard it, instead of going out and finishing it. I know we will get there eventually. Our team has chemistry that I haven't seen any other team have. Other teams have one or two great players that carry them. Where as we truly are a team that gets support from everyone. But most importantly we are the only team that looks like they are having fun. We even get the refs to laugh, and how many other teams have a blog?! And i'm thinking our own Home & Away Jerseys will be the next step, so we can look really sexy, whether we win or lose. Thanks to everyone for their continued dedication and support to the team, the blog, and life!

Shout outs to:

- Eddie for the photos and amazing job on the 1st season of the blog

- Ray for all the rides home

- Don for the cab rides and ciggies

- Russ for all his half time coaching advice

- Josh for bringing the streets and the jokes

- Divino for on court entertainment

- Robert for playing like its the NBA finals till the last second

- Ted for his one game this season

- Max for the shorts

Till next season fellas, which is in three weeks.

Soy Capitan!