The inaugural Roundball at the Rock charity basketball event for the Rotary First Harvest, staged at Bonney Lake High School Saturday, is officially in the archives. With the help of about 100 people – including, fans, coaches, players, volunteers and financial supporters – the program went off without a hitch and was a success.

Considering the picturesque sunny afternoon on which the game was contested, with makeup baseball and softball games being played and yard work to get started on, when all was said and done the event raised about $200 and will consequently mean 6,000 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables being trucked into to area food banks for the underserved on the Plateau and the valley below.

The main event between The Couriers (blue shirts) and The Heralds (green shirts) was highly entertaining using, as a yardstick, the old sports axiom that offense sells tickets and defense wins games.

Fans saw whale of a hoop fest as a total of 200 points were tallied in this shoot-out that admittedly didn’t include a preponderance of defense, but did see The Heralds prevail 113-87.

When the confrontation first got underway it looked as if The Couriers would dominate. Due to circumstances beyond the control of coaches Rick Tripp and Rob Thayer, the green team was outnumbered 2-to-1.

However, even though the fiercer members of The Heralds, Derek “The Mad Bomber” Lund, Tony “The Tiger” Chynoweth, Drake “Tall Boy” Radenmacher and Perry “The Optimist” Rockwood weren’t allowed to play under their old and new head coach Kellen Hall (who was gracious enough to help coach The Couriers) due to a bizarre WIAA rule, the green team’s shooting percentage from the floor was tremendous.

That factor alone was enough to keep the blue squad at arm’s length until reinforcements could arrive in the form of 6-foot, 7-inch Bonney Lake senior post Mike Gould, who came into his own this season behind the learned guidance of Panther head coach Rob Smith, to help the black and teal advance to the postseason in 2012.

At any rate, after Gould showed up it was Katie-bar-the-door, as the inside presence of having two 6-foot, 7-inch stilts in the low post in Radenmacher and Gould, simply proved to be overwhelming and the talented young ladies playing for The Heralds – Naomi Pounds (Bonney Lake High) and Fallon Hall (Enumclaw High) – took care of the rest as they played miserly defense and brought the ball down the floor, for the most part distributing to the twin towers.

While the coaching tandem of the Buckley Boys’ Rick Tripp and the Spartan Steamroller Rob “Too Tall” Thayer proved to be a winning combination as their crew managed to reach the century mark and beyond, one has to give Hall and Thomas “The Train” Ostrander their due as well. I reminded both of those guys not to just leave Ostrander’s brother-in-laws the DeVries twins and the skilled Zebulon Glissmeyer (also of McDaniel lineage) in there the whole time.

Thank goodness Hall and Ostrander threw everything on the floor but the kitchen sink in order to entertain an appreciative crowd, who would have never seen Sumner backcourt ace Tayler Holtman, who displayed some pretty impressive moves coming off the pines.

Also making his presence felt was Panther senior Mikey Berger who had the blue shirt’s cheering section going bonkers with his antics. Berger arrived late with Gould, but had been delegated to the other team, as had Enumclaw girl guard Callie Remitz, who was filling in for an injured Danielle Saltarelli. Saltarelli thankfully consented to sell concessions which this old reporter appreciated more than she will ever know.

It was heartwarming to see the basketball community come together in such a helpful way for such a good cause.