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In honor of the 20th anniversary of Buster Douglas’ unprecedented upset over the once-believed-indestructible “Iron” Mike Tyson, I hoped something in the local sports scene would relive the glory of the unlikeliest of outcomes.

On Friday, East wrestling gave the No. 1 ranked Central Indians a go. But after East tied the dual at 21-21, the Indians lived up to their top-rated status and rolled to a 41-21 win.

On Saturday, I still had the chance for the unlikely when the No. 1 ranked East girls and crosstown rival Central faced off at Storey Gym.

The T-Birds dominated the first meeting, but I’m hopeful most of the time — or maybe just hopeless and naive — and I expected a top-notch effort from Central.

In either case, I hoped for a classic dual.

For one half, my wish for a Buster Douglas redux came true. Central came out of the locker room on fire and gave the hopefuls in attendance a reason to hope — they trailed by two at half.

Sadly, reality kicked in during the second half and the T-Birds imposed their will like Oprah on anything that can be eaten — food or not.

The bottom line — the T-Birds won 58-38.

Given the right circumstances, Central could have played two complete halves. They didn’t and they lost.

My dream of an underdog did not come true, but I am content either way.

Besides, who needs an unlikely upset to be happy? Buster Douglas beat 42 to 1 odds in an epic tale of defeat. Now, he weighs 714 pounds and wears turtleneck sweaters. For what it’s worth, winning isn’t everything, but it sure is fun.

Thanks for looking.

The above photo isn’t my best work of the year, but it is kind of funny when put into context.

The group above represents 50 percent of the Cheyenne South High School swimming and (not) diving team — the two older guys in shirts are the coach and principal.

Now to the explanation; the group is reacting to a dive gone wrong. It was a back or belly flop but I didn’t see as my back was turned. Sounded bad though. The fear of flopping is not the reason for South not having a diving team. Some of the kids really want to dive, but the fact is, there are only six swimmers in this, the inaugural season of Bison aquatics.

First-year head coach Jason Garman said he cannot tell the difference between his small team and a big team. Sure, he can count and see there are fewer Speedos by his end of the pool, but this is his first coaching gig. And it’s a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. He joked with principal Mike Hamel and said that his Bison broke multiple school records on the day to add to their already crazy season total of 100 percent record breakage.

That’s job security if I’ve ever seen it.

Luckily for the South High Water Buffaloes, Garman is a product of legendary Laramie High School coach Tom Hudson, who has led both his men’s and women’s programs to multiple state titles during his tenure. To say that South can duplicate Hudson’s success this season is a stretch and Garman is realistic about the prospect of his team dominating the city anytime soon.

For now, he is content with his small team putting out big effort.

And that attitude is a good way for the fledgling program to avoid taking a dive.

Thanks for looking.

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Why is it that the biggest cop out of conversation –weather — is always a non-cop out of conversation in Wyoming? On Thursday night, I said to a co-worker, “I hope the weather stays nice for the two days of state football I’m going to shoot.”

The next day on I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie, my Jetta was tossed around like an American tourist in a Turkish prison.

Thursday was beautiful with no snow… Friday was more like the movie Alive — you know, rugby team crashes in Andes and resorts to munching on each other to survive. The only major difference was my lack of human meat. It was cold and miserable and I’m pretty sure I would’ve eaten my meaty brother had things not cleared up before Saturday’s games.

Despite bad weather, the games were actually pretty good on Friday. One upset in 2A and a success story in 1A as Southeast won their fourth title in a row.

On Saturday, the nice weather (less snow) resulted in three games with a combined difference of 115 points. That of course was skewed by 6-man dynamo Guernsey-Sunrise’s 76-16 win over Kaycee. The other two games ended in a 25-point win for Sheridan and 30-point win by Douglas.

I had fun and am glad I didn’t have to eat anyone.

Congratulations to the champions and the runner-ups for making it to Laramie.

Thanks for looking.

This is the third time I’ve had the chance to shoot Morgan Hartigan.

And for the third time, I struggled.

Luckily, she’s not only a good swimmer, but a patient individual, too.

The above image was among the final frames of the afternoon shoot. Morgan was home sick from school and I was on assignment sick of work. The timing for us to meet could not have come at a better time. As the kids say, it was sick.

At first, I had the idea to mimic a shot by photo chief little Mike Smith. His shot was of a spider web covered in dew. In each droplet was an image of a flower from the background. Pretty cool shot, so I thought it might be cool to experiment with that technique on a swimmer.

Not very cool execution on my part.

I got the light right, but I couldn’t get the water to form the correctly. I guess watching the Little Mermaid beforehand would have been a wise decision — you know, the scene when Ursula gets wicked crazy with the ocean.

Since my initial attempts to be awesome failed (story of my life), I moved on to a few techniques I knew might work. Do you like how I confidently knew, but there was still a doubtful might? Me too.

Morgan laughed a lot at my lame jokes and attempts to make her feel less uncomfortable. I think it was laughter intended at me, but I will interpret it as laughter with me.

In all, it was OK, but I would like to have nailed the water shot. In all likelihood, there will be another chance to shoot a swimmer in the future. Probably just none that will humor my lack of humor with compensatory laughter.

For more photos of the Morgan Hartigan shoot, click “continue reading” below.

Thanks for looking.

Editor’s note: AAron wasn’t really sick of work, it just sounded more clever written as such.

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East High reached an East low on Friday night.

After a thrilling opening weekend 42-28 loss at Green River, the T-Birds looked to avenge the defeat against Sheridan. Unfortunately for the Eastsiders, Sheridan was looking to settle the score after their own opening weekend loss at the hands of Kelly Walsh.

In the first quarter, Sheridan cruised behind quarterback Dan Zemski to a 21-0 lead. East made an effort to get back into the game and closed the gap to 21-7 on a touchdown reception by Jordan Williams.

That lasted all of… well, not very long.

Sheridan cruised to a blowout like a set of Firestone radial ATX tires — they exploded. By half, the black and blue really looked black and blue as they trailed the pride of Sheridan County 49-7.

Though East lost (56-21), the fans remained steadfast in their cheers and chants. That is certainly better than having batteries thrown from the bleachers in the face of defeat (don’t get any ideas).

East should recover. There are times when teams don’t put everything together and tonight was that night. Behind a sophomore quarterback and a rather young set of skill players, the T-Birds will not go quietly in the remainder of the season.

Thanks for looking.