Lake Highlands’ Hannah Wedding fights for a loose ball against Craig Miller from Team Ticket in a friendly basketball game at Moody Coliseum on Wednesday night. Lake Highlands won the game 61-44. (Michael Danser)
Talk is cheap.
That’s why the hosts at Dallas’ sports talk radio station The Ticket deserve some credit for challenging a group of girls from the Lake Highlands High School girls basketball team to a friendly game Wednesday in front of about 4,000 curious fans at Moody Coliseum.
However, Team Ticket’s performance validated what many people knew already: Middle-age men don’t belong on the same court as teenagers, not even teenage girls.
Consider the debate settled.
After going into halftime with a 21-14 lead, Team Ticket ran out of gas in a 61-44 loss to the Lake Highlands Thunder, which consisted of varsity and junior varsity players from Lake Highlands.
“Just like anything related to The Ticket, the wheels fell off at the end,” said Michael Gruber, a host on the station. “We had a smooth takeoff, a smooth flight and a crash landing.”
Sports radio hosts catch a lot of flak for ruthlessly criticizing athletes while doing nothing more than reclining with a can of beer and potato chips. So the hosts at The Ticket set out on a mission. They began practicing a month before the event, and they stepped on the court Wednesday and fought valiantly.
But Team Ticket did not have the stamina to keep up with the Thunder, who started the fourth quarter on a 17-2 run and pulled away late.
From the moment they arrived at the gym, the Thunder let The Ticket’s players know that they weren’t joking.
The Ticket’s starters tried to fist-bump the Thunder’s players as they stood in line after pre-game introductions, but the girls refused. Then the Thunder won the opening tip, despite The Ticket’s sizable height advantage.
Meanwhile, The Ticket’s players brought a different attitude to the court. During pregame warm-ups, Gruber wore a Superman cape, and Dan McDowell high-fived fans while running down the court after a lay up.
Needless to say, the crowd at Moody Coliseum got the entertainment that they came to see.
“The first half was a lot of fun,” said Jesuit High School sophomore James Hairston, an avid listener of The Ticket. He said that he not only listens to The Ticket on the way to school, but also during and after school. “If you can’t feel the connection, then something’s wrong.”
Hairston carried a rain stick, which symbolized “how the Ticket’s supposed to make it rain from the 3-point line. It’s kind of ironic how it also made it rain outside.”
