2013 Douglas vs. McQueen Basketball… NIAA Playoffs 1st Round…

As I sit here and watch the “social media” scene (particularly Twitter… the feeds trickling in…)… all my experiences come flooding back to me… championship seasons, lost games, “career ending games”… I’m very much reminded that all good things must eventually come to an end for some while others might march on toward the championship, only to have their season also eventually come to a close….

Douglas’ season came to a close tonight at home against a VERY good McQueen team.  McQueen came to play, McQueen came to win… they laid it all out there tonight… you’ll see from some of the photos that I’ve got, Douglas had to fight for everything… and by the sounds of it, so did every other Division 1 team in Northern Nevada!  The scores were incredible!  Carson over Spanish Springs 38-37 (super low score, like the Carson Douglas game last week… and won in the last seconds…), Hug squeaks by Damonte with a last few seconds bucket 62-60.  Galena beats Reed 64-60… and McQueen, with 4.5 seconds left takes one from Douglas at home 60-59.  Going to be VERY interesting Thursday night at Carson High for the Semifinals!!

… on to the photos from tonight… McQueen making it tough in all but the very last photo here… and in that one they’ve still got someone at least around just to make sure… contesting everything, hands in the face (at least…), they REALLY pushed Douglas tonight and made them earn everything.  The Carson McQueen matchup on Thursday should be a very interesting one… 🙂

130212_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Austin 130212_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Battle 130212_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Battle2 130212_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Battle3 130212_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Hunter 130212_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Nolting

2013 Carson High Basketball vs. Douglas

You know how you say “… cross your T’s and dot you i’s…”?  Well… you also know how you say… “$*%&@ happens!”… That was my night…. even though I thought I did the first, I ended up with some of the second….  Skip to the bottom if you want to read more about that…

Carson hosted Douglas Friday night for the last regular season basketball games.  The Douglas Jr Varsity Boys inched away in the final minutes to take the win from Carson… you can see more of the action from those games in the photo galleries….

The Carson Varsity Girls took the win from the Douglas Girls… the game showed some signs of things to come next year with some of the match ups between “non-senior” players… should be some great positional battles next year! Here are a few photos from their game….130208_Carson_instaimage_Girls Basketball_GPDrive 130208_Carson_instaimage_Girls Basketball_Layup 130208_Carson_instaimage_Girls Basketball_SSDrive 130208_Douglas_instaimage_Girls Basketball_Drive Here is one of those match ups… Douglas Freshman vs. Carson Junior… stay tuned for next year! 🙂

130208_Douglas_instaimage_Girls Basketball_MKStopThe boys game…

No matter which side you are on, this rivalry can make for some great games.  Going into this one, after having seen both teams play… and having seen Carson “evolve” into the team they’ve become, I was expecting some exciting things… and this game delivered!

Here’s the Carson Student section during the Douglas Team introductions…130208_Carson_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Intro

And the game QUICKLY went to this… quarterback vs. quarterback… oh wait, point guard vs. point guard… 😉 Loose ball, and NO ONE is backing down in this one!130208_Carson Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_QBvQBRough trying to defend the “BIG Man” underneath…130208_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_James Hunter “flying” toward the basket…130208_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Hunter The game became about the defense… you can see the scoreboard here… nearly 1/2 way through the fourth quarter and only 60 TOTAL points in the game… The “Twin Towers” for Douglas were formidable… and I hope remain so throughout the next week!  Should be great to photograph!130208_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_TwinTowers … and on the other side of the hoop… can’t imagine trying to get inside for those higher percentage shots having the defenders looking down at you… 🙂  Good stuff!130208_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Stop This shot reminded me of my soccer days.  The trick in any head to head sports is to get a 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 step… ANY amount of “space” away from your defender… Hunter is very good at doing this and that significantly helps with his “opportunities” for points.130208_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Hunter Space… and Carson’s last “dance” toward the end of the game.  Rafe’s got the Douglas player still on his… toe… 😉 Sorry…
130208_Carson Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Last Dance.jpgContinued from above…

“$*%&@ happens!”

I should have known when I woke up in Vegas and made the decision to NOT go for a run but to pack and get to the airport early (due to the nasty weather in the Northeast…) that my day would have it’s “challenges”.  I’ve been waiting for this game the ENTIRE season and I messed up…. Sometimes no matter how many times you think you’ve double checked things… do it again….

As I mentioned, I started my day at 6:15 AM in Las Vegas.  I was at a photo convention for my Old Time Portrait studio… had a pretty good convention, my employee walked away with five photo competition ribbons, a first, a second and three fourth place!!  We had our “Ball” at the end of the convention Thursday night and I was on my way home Friday morning… I’ve flown a fair amount… I’ve flown the Vegas Reno and visa-versa leg a lot since moving here for a lot of photo conferences in Vegas… I’ve NEVER see the Southwest line in Vegas THAT long… EVER… it was so long they didn’t have enough of their people containment strap thingies…. That was how my day started… the flight was great… but I was VERY tight on time getting home and leaving for the games…

I try very hard to be prepared… I’m human, I forget things sometimes (my wife would say often…).  I tried very hard to cross my T’s and dot my i’s for this game and I went through everything a few times… but… well… I failed.  And I’m pretty pissed about it… I know… eh, just show up and take a few snap shots right… NO!!  Like a previous game I set up a remote camera behind the backboard knowing that Hunter and James would be playing… with big fellas under I was hoping for some “above the rim” action…

Here’s the backboard camera…130208remote

So… I had everything set up, exposure was set, batteries fresh, remotes working (although I was having trouble with the one sitting on the floor, it wasn’t “responsive” enough for my liking… still looking into that…), safety strap installed… I even raised the camera and lowered the angle this time to try to get some additional action more “under” the basket… … where did I fail?

I didn’t set, reset, check and double check the focus.  And yes, I really do mean check it four times… it was off… and off just enough that not one of the images is OK in my book… At half time I checked the floor remote rig and reset the focus but I didn’t check the backboard camera after my initial setup…  Guess what I’ll be doing for Regionals?

The slam dunk wasn’t much from above because of the closeness of where Hunter came from, just no way I can get something there unless I’m up in the rafters shooting down at the basket… 🙂130208hands 130208widefloor

2013 Douglas High Basketball vs. Bishop Manogue High

Douglas hosted Bishop Manogue tonight for the Jr Varsity Boys, Varsity Girls and Varsity Boys basketball games.  Manogue won the JV Boys and Varsity Girls games but Douglas’ Varsity Boys rolled away with a pretty easy win… Douglas will host Carson this coming Friday night for the first of the home and away series between Carson and Douglas….

Onto the action!

A few shots from the Girls game…

130115_Douglas_instaimage_Girls Basketball_1130115_Manogue_instaimage_Girls Basketball_1… and the Boys game…
130115_Manogue_instaimage_Boys Basketball_1As everyone knows, Hunter Myers is a force on the court… There was a Harvard representative in the stands tonight observing the game (you can actually see him in this photo… he’s next to Hunter’s dad between the two Manogue players…). 🙂  Sometimes you get lucky!
130115_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Hunter Meyers_1

Not everyone will have the “opportunity” to play with someone this dynamic… when you can practice an alley-oop… and pull it off in a game, that’s fun stuff!  Enjoy the ride Douglas High, these opportunities don’t come around very often!130115_Douglas_instaimage_Boys Basketball_Hunter Meyers_2

2012 NIAA Girls Soccer Semifinals, Douglas vs. Reno, Carson vs. Spanish Springs

Double header NIAA Northern Division 1 Girls Soccer Semifinals today at Damonte Ranch High School.  Douglas faced Reno and Carson faced Spanish Springs.

Reno High took the win in the first semifinal 4-1 over Douglas.  Douglas, with a very young team will certainly be back in the coming years… I believe they have at least two starting freshman this year if not more and several starting sophomores… look for them to be back atop again next year….  Carson, in my opinion, easily won the second semifinal 3-0 against Spanish Springs.  These two met about two weeks ago at Carson with a much closer game (2-1 Carson) but today, Carson was playing with some urgency… urgency to move on to the next round in Vegas!

The Carson team that I’ve seen Tuesday at home and tonight at Damonte, if they show up to play like this will be needing to book their tickets to Vegas for the State Tournament next weekend for sure!  Again, well done ladies!

The Carson Girls play for the Regional Championship on Saturday at 2:00 PM back at Damonte… and they follow the Carson Boys who will play for the Regional Championship at noon.  Good luck Senators!

Here are some shot from the Girls Semifinals today…

Here I am again, playing around… 🙂  I was scouting setting up a remote… the clouds make this photo… I don’t think it would have near the interest without them… Yes, I’ve boosted the colors to make it a bit more punchy… this is the Reno goalkeeper warming up before the first semifinal….McKenna shooting her NIAA record tying 29th goal of the season… she’s a freshman…… some tough defending in the midfield from Douglas…To make it 3-1 Reno…And onto the Carson vs. Spanish Springs game… Once again, Ms. Sandage causing some trouble… she scored one tonight.  These two were also “featured” in my post from the Carson home game that I labeled “The Dance”… no arm grab in this one! 🙂Kenzie taking a shot on goal… She also netted one tonight (not on this shot…)

The lights at Damonte are… well, they’re parking lot lights, not stadium lights… I used settings on the camera tonight that I’ve never even thought of using to try to balance the color… and then they had a very strange fluctuation that I see frequently but just not like there… very strange stuff… Not really anxious to shoot there again at night! 🙂

2012 Carson High Football vs. Douglas…

Senior Night, last regular season game, playoffs on the line… what most thought at the start of the season would be the NIAA Northern Division 1 Sierra League game to determine #1 & #2… the game was certainly entertaining!  A good battle for the last playoff spot for the Sierra League… and as always, I’ll leave the story writing to the journalists… 🙂

The Tigers returned to their early season form last night.  VERY tough running by Conner Peterson, that kid is a battering ram.  Michael Nolting had time in the pocket and was able to pick his receivers, Joey at the Record-Courier tweeted at the half that he had completed 10 consecutive passes and to seven different receivers…. Those offensive weapons led them to their early season 50+ point games.

On to the photos…

I tried something new tonight with this shot.  When this lens first came out I knew it had some very interesting possibilities and within a few days this concept popped up in Leading Off in the first few pages of Sports Illustrated (See more details about this at the end of the post… )… I knew I had to try the same thing at the Carson Douglas Football game. 🙂  And here it is!

Before the game Carson had their Senior Night Ceremony… while the were starting the seniors lined up their helmets off the end of the field… I had to grab this photo.… and THIS is the kind of night I was hoping it would be… This photo is of significance to me for a few reasons.  Douglas #33, Cale Kynett is a kid I’ve shown here before (in his Varsity debut)… and I was very pleased to get this photo.  I would have liked it without #48 hanging on him because then I would have had #33, a sophomore vs. #21, a sophomore… but adding #48 (Luke, a senior and a big strong kid…) to the photo just helps show why Cale is a Varsity starter.  I’ve covered Cale every year I’ve been here in Northern Nevada… never… never not seen Cale “bring it” at game time!  This kid loves to compete and I LOVE that! Good stuff Cale!  This is also going to be a shot I have a feeling I’m going to get the next few years… 🙂  Colby and Cale going head to head… already looking forward to next year’s Carson Douglas game! 🙂

Hindsight is always 20-20 and this photo, to me, shows a very confident Tiger team walking onto the field before the game…... and very quickly we had this…… so, “photographically” this photo is missing something, right?  Where’s the ball?  That’s the point.  Logan, #20 stripped the ball from Conner Peterson which set up Carson’s first touchdown early in the first quarter.  The follow on shots in the Carson gallery show the ball bouncing around behind them…

Then Nolting and the Tiger Offense went to work…… and Colby ran for a touchdown…
… and more game action… a tough stop by the Carson Defense…… and Dusty Fisher making a catch late in the 4th to help set up the game winning field goal…

How did they know they’d need this sign? 🙂  They were right!  Here’s the Douglas crowd after the game winning field goal.Good Luck to Douglas next week as they travel to Reed to play in the first round of the playoffs!

To the Seniors of both teams.  Thank you fellas for another fun year. I know I’ll be seeing some of you again on the basketball court and some on the baseball field but I just wanted to wish you all the very best of luck.  When you come out and play hard and compete it makes my job a lot more fun, I thank you for that! Good Luck Fellas!

Here is the shot by Peter Read Miller, Sports Illustrated that I “copied” for mine above… As he states, “A fisheye lens isn’t something you can use every day, but it’s a great creative challenge to come up with ideas for situations when you can use it. In this case the combination of a cool piece of gear, a majestic setting and a cooperative team combined to allow me to make an interesting and more importantly a different picture.”

Peter Read Miller, Sports Illustrated

Coin toss of the Dallas Cowboys during the Cowboys 24-23 preseason win over the Denver Broncos at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Aug. 11, 2011.

2012 Carson High Girls Soccer vs. Douglas… Senior Night

Tonight ended the regular season for Carson and Douglas Girls Soccer programs, thus it was senior night at Carson High… The Senior Senators also made a point during the half time ceremony to recognize the Douglas Seniors, I know you all play club together and know each other well but that’s very classy ladies, well done.

The Carson Supporters were out… “Take a picture, take a picture…” 🙂

… and onto the game… 🙂

McKenna is going to be a marked player for the next few years up top for Douglas!It’s been fun seeing these two go at it over the years…

Rivals or not, friends or not, this game started to get a little chippy in the midfield as Douglas started putting the game away…

We should see both teams go pretty deep into the Regional Championships next week… I believe both will host a first round game on Tuesday October 30th at 6:00PM.  Click HERE for the NIAA Bracket.

I wish both teams the very best through the playoffs!  It’s a pleasure covering your games, thank you ladies!

2012 Douglas Fooball… vs. Damonte…

I only played football one season… I was the kicker my Junior year of high school (we were State champions!!)… I knew nothing about the game, wasn’t given a playbook, made a few tackles simply because I was the last guy there on a kickoff… being a soccer player for 14 straight years ending with three years at San Jose State… I will never quite understand American Football… and the ending of the game tonight’s game was so strange that I’ll let someone else try to explain it in technical terms… if they’re able…  (I’ll give you my explanation at the bottom of this post if you care to read… 🙂  )

Homecoming AND Senior night at Douglas tonight as it was their last regular season home game!  All my Senior Night images are in the Varsity gallery… the Homecoming images link is on the Douglas High Athletics page…

… but to kick off my images I’ll start with the Homecoming King and Queen!  I’ve been photographing Kyle for quite a few years now!  Congrats Kyle and Jordan!!I can always count on Kyle to have his great smile!  But for those of you that don’t know or haven’t seen Kyle in action in the pool… 🙂

OK, back to the game!

I just want to give a big shout out to Cale Kynett… Like Kyle above, I’ve been photographing Cale for quite a few years… tonight was his Varsity debut… and in this photographer’s opinion, he certainly earned himself some playing time!  Here’s one of his tackles tonight!  Welcome to Varsity Cale!

… and one last shot… this was Damonte’s last drive of the game… leading to the most bizarre finish I can remember….

Wild ending… OK… well… Damonte took over on downs around their 45 or so… a few plays later, the above image being the one that got them down to where all the crazy ending happened… they ended up with the ball inside the 5…. No timeouts left… with 2.9 seconds remaining the near side (Douglas side) umpire threw a penalty flag… I believe it was 4th and goal at this point, so score or it’s over… well the penalty was waived off… Damonte attempted to snap the ball and it was bobbled but the end zone umpire was in the process of blowing his whistle to hold the play… it was all rather chaotic… time expired as the play had started (the booth can’t tell what’s going on that clearly on the field…)… but the whistle had blown so they added the 2.9 seconds back… Damonte regrouped (changed plays even), snapped the ball and ran into the end zone… that tied it 46-46… Damonte kicked the extra and won the game.  I can’t even being to comment as it was all surreal watching it live… I asked Joey (from the Record-Courier) and he was just as baffled…  I’ll be anxious to watch if anything comes of it post game….

2012 Douglas High Volleyball… vs. Carson…

An exciting duel tonight at the Douglas High Gym… Douglas hosted Carson… even the Carson “athletic supporters” show up tonight to cheer on the team… certainly the loudest, most exciting volleyball game I’ve been to since I was in college!

I had to laugh… before the game they were playing a song that came out when I was a sophomore in high school… I asked one of the Carson girls if she had heard the song before… “… yes, it’s an oldie…”… 🙂  Not to date myself but not a sole playing tonight was even born when that song came out… NO, I won’t tell you the song… THAT would make me an oldie too! 😉

On to the photos!  The Carson “athletic supporters”… 🙂  The were quite animated tonight!  Even chanting “Jeff, take a picture!”… I had to oblige….

Still working on that “net” shot…, manual focus on this one… I’m pretty happy with this one!

I had a very good friend in college that played volleyball at San Jose State when I was on the soccer team… she was a left handed setter… (see where this is going…)… at one of her games I saw her get all ready to set the ball but instead she spiked it over the net left handed, scoring a point… I’d never seen that before so it really caused me to sit up and pay attention… I LOVE that threat!

… and the celebration!  I have to confess, I was waiting for this one… even the bench is celebrating!  Love it!  Hats off to both teams… there must be a winner, tonight it was Carson, but these teams gave the crowd and this photographer an exciting game to watch tonight!  Glad I was there to record parts of it!

Lessons learned… and executed…

If you saw the last blog post you should recognize this image…

This has been bugging me… 🙂

As we go anywhere in life we are told things that really stick in our heads… hopefully we learn and grow as time goes on, that’s what makes us better, right?  THIS photo is a perfect example for me.  I was told something very clearly when away at a photo conference lately that I think about just about every time I’m out shooting… so HERE is how what I was told is applied…  THIS is how this photo should be shown. 🙂

2012 Douglas High Soccer… vs. Carson…

Douglas hosted Carson today for Boys JV, Boys Varsity, Girls Varsity and Girls JV soccer… four straight games… check the photo galleries for all the action, including the JV! 🙂

This first shot… we haven’t gotten to the Carson Douglas football game yet (Thursday, October 25th, fittingly the day before Nevada Day!!) so I don’t have a “contact” shot from that matchup… so this will be my quintessential “rivalry” shot until then… 🙂  THIS to me shows the intensity of the your rivalry!  Fun stuff… and like basketball, soccer is a “non-contact” sport… 😉Literally seconds into the boys varsity game Douglas went up a goal… the ball bounced around in the Carson goal area until it was hammered into the back of the net… it all happened very fast… very fast… as in, what just happened as the ball bounced in the back of the net… I might be wrong, but I think this fella was the one who tried to rip the net off the back of the goal with that first shot!  THAT’S the kind of passion for this game I miss the most… well done!! (this is NOT his goal… just another shot later in the first half, I had the long tele lens in hand and quite frankly was no where near prepared to see a first 1/2 minute of play goal… that will teach me! 😉 )

Both the varsity games were very well attended, that was great to see… I commented after the boys game which ended 4-4, “… you can’t call that game “unexciting”…”!  A good show for all the fans…

This fella is always entertaining to photograph!  THIS is commitment to a move… for your information… a soccer ball is a fair amount smaller than a basketball… look at how far his knee is from the ground!  … and you have to love the muscle definition in the plant leg….

On to the girls game… … just a shot I liked… it’s kinda funny to me in a strange photo geek way… I was commenting the other day I was hoping they would be playing on the football field because there’s a “not very attractive” (… and of course I used those words… 😉 ) railcar type structure behind the Douglas bench… and here I go and choose a photo with that “not very attractive” structure in the background… You can see how the team tent is reflecting white light onto the upper portion so you can see the shape of the structure vs. the bottom where there is no reflection…. interesting in a photo geek kinda way I guess.

Here’s a now and then for you… and not to pick on Kiahna but… 🙂  This is her playing yesterday and the photo below is from two years ago… a little flashback for you from the photos I’ve posted over the years on the site.

Check out that posting here… you’ll see another familiar face on the Carson Girls team… 🙂