pubescent were more interested in the joy of six - in my case,

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Green Bay got physical with top-ranked Notre Dame and gave the Fighting Irish about all they could take.The Phoenix (2-1) rallied from 17 points down midway through the third quarter and narrowed the lead to five points three times in the final 4 minutes before finally falling 71-67 in a Preseason WNIT semifinal Thursday night.The Irish (3-0) shot just 33 percent in the second half and 36 percent for the game. Arike Ogunbowale led the Irish with 18 points but didnt hit another basket after making a 15-foot jumper to extend Notre Dames lead to 17 points.Jessica Lindstrom led the Phoenix with 20 points and 16 rebounds, hitting a 3-pointer to cut Notre Dames lead to 69-64 with 19 seconds left. But Marina Mabrey, who finished with 13 points, hit two free throws to give the Irish a seven-point lead with 16 seconds left.Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw was disappointed with the Irish, saying they were ragged on offense and struggled defensively against Green Bays screens.Theyre so experienced. Theyre poised. Theyre well coached. Theyre disciplined. Offensively they were really hard to guard and defensively they made it really difficult to get the ball in the post, she said.The Irish, who normally dominate inside, had only a 28-24 advantage inside against the Phoenix and Green Bays reserves outscored Notre Dames bench 22-8.The Phoenix shot 64 percent in the second half and 45 percent for the game.We changed a little bit of the schematic and tried to put it so we could drive it and spread them out a little more, which helped us, Green Bay coach Kevin Borseth said. But we hit some shots, some big shots.Players on both sides described the game as physical.But I feel like thats just part of the game nowadays, Lindstrom said.McGraw believes having such a tough challenge will help the Irish.Hopefully we learned a lot from it. I thought we made some big plays in the end when we had to. But overall, just really disappointing, she said. We looked like the younger team on the floor, and I think we were. But I think we can play a lot smarter.BIG PICTUREGreen Bay: The Phoenix, the favorites to win the Horizon League, played their first game ever against a No. 1 ranked team and stayed within reach throughout the game as they gave the Irish all they could handle.Notre Dame: The Irish struggled offensively early against the Phoenix, who ranked ninth nationally in scoring defense last season at 52.2 points a game, but managed to pull out the victory despite being held to 36 percent shooting.POLL IMPLICATIONS:Green Bay: The Phoenix were already receiving votes and likely could well move into the rankings with an impressive showing on the road.Notre Dame: The Irish may be hard-pressed to keep the No. 1 ranking after struggling on its home court against an unranked opponent.TIP-INS: The Irish were 0 of 5 from 3-point range in the second half after going 5 of 8 in the first half. ... Green Bay was 6 of 9 from 3-point range in the third quarter. ... The Irish have players from 10 states on their roster. Every player on Green Bay is from Wisconsin. ... The Phoenix dropped to 1-2 all-time against the Irish, with the win coming in 1987.UP NEXTGreen Bay: The Phoenix are knocked out of the Preseason WNIT. Green Bay plays road games against Belmont, Chattanooga and Bradley before returning home to face Drake on Dec. 3.Notre Dame: The Irish will play No. 17 Washington in the Preseason WNIT final at South Bend on Sunday. The Irish then play at Louisiana-Lafayette on Tuesday. Wholesale College Jerseys . Fellow centre Pavel Datsyuk remains out because of a concussion. Zetterberg has 11 goals and 19 assists for a team-high 30 points, and Datsyuk has a team-high 12 goals and 11 assists. Stitched College Jerseys . The Masters champion and winner of last weeks Australian PGA has a three-round total of 14-under 199 at Royal Melbourne. "Im in a really good position for tomorrow," Scott said. http://www.cheapcollegejerseysfreeshipping.com/ . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. Cheap College Jerseys Outlet . -- Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Farmar will be out for roughly four weeks after tearing his left hamstring. Cheap College Jerseys . The Vancouver coach and an announced sellout crowd of 18,910 watched in dismay as the Canucks lost 7-4 to the New York Islanders on Monday night by squandering a 3-0 lead in the third period. Viv Richards off David Lawrence, Trent Bridge, July 1991 Nobody will ever hit sixes like Sir Vivian Richards. Nobody will ever clear the boundary with such relative frequency - or with the same awesome combination of serenity, power, ease and disdain. He turned it into an art form. There were bigger and better sixes, not least in the 1979 World Cup final, but Richards straight six off David Lawrence captured one of his greatest qualities - the ability to turn bowlers into Sisyphus.Lawrence had one of the more vigorous fast-bowling actions; journalists were contractually obliged to describe him as bustling. He gave a little piece of his soul to every delivery. All that effort instantly rendered worthless by one effortless swing of the bat. The ball was halfway to Derby before Lawrence had even finished his follow-through.Richards used the six as an expression of undeniable superiority. They were worth a lot more than six runs, because of the impact they had on the bowler. During his legendary unbeaten 189 in an ODI against England, Richards flicked Ian Botham for six. Botham waved his hands around, overwhelmed by futility, and looked this close to shouting Its not fair.Richards was a fast batsman - not just in the speed he scored and the speed of his hands, but the way he reversed the relationship between quick bowler and batsman, hunter and hunted: mental disintegration achieved without saying a single word.Moin Khan off Chris Harris, Auckland, March 1992 Every kid at school had a grainy VHS to watch on loop when nobody was around. Its just that the less, erm, pubescent were more interested in the joy of six - in my case, highlights of the 1992 World Cup semi-finals, the first cricket I ever recorded for posterity. Two things stayed in the mind. The England fan who went through the entire range of human emotions in a few minutes at the end of the second semi-final - even though a ball wasnt bowled in that time.The other was Moin Khans audacious six to put Pakistan on the brink of their first World Cup final. Pakistan needed nine from eight balls - pretty tricky back then - when he swiped Chris Harris over long-off for six. Its the kind of shot that lodges itself in the minds eye, and especially the minds ear: I can recite Bill Lawrys commentary without thinking. The next ball was pulled for four, and a game that looked set to go to the last ball didnt even go to the last over. The non-striker, Javed Miandad - who knows all about hitting timely sixes - celebrated so joyously that he looked like he was trying to fly.As well as further fuel for a burgeoning love affair with Pakistan, which started when I watched a teenage Waqar Younis destroy New Zealand on Teletext, the six was a classic example of one of the most fascinating parts of any major tournament - the exquisitely cruel moment when the hosts, hitherto so innocent and hopeful, have a knife plunged into their heart. One New Zealand fan was so dumbstruck that he didnt move for seconds, as if somebody had paused him, and you can hear the gasps and shrieks as Moins six goes the distance. Especially when youre watching it for the 400th time.Ian Healy off Hansie Cronje, Port Elizabeth, March 1997 Who needs self-help books when so many of the great Australian sides of the 1990s and 2000s have released autobiographies? I devoured them, even the ones that made War and Peace look like a short story, expecting profound insight into mental strength and personal development from these flinty-eyed Paul McKennas. Turns out they all have the same fragilities as us; they just hide them a lot better. Ian Healy once said that Australia were the masters of bluff. His wonderful book Hands and Heeals confirms he was speaking from experience.ddddddddddddHealy strutted like a man immune to self-doubt. His six to win the glorious Port Elizabeth Test and give Australia the first of many series victories over post-isolation South Africa is a perfect example of Healy and Australia ignoring pressure. In fact, Australia were having a fraught tour, with the captain Mark Taylors desperate batting form the most significant of a number of problems. During the run chase, Healy was very, very nervous, with legs like jelly when he came to the wicket. He became distracted by a group of noisy schoolchildren, and started singing Bryan Adams Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? to clear his mind. With five needed, Australia lost their eighth wicket, and South Africa were one away from Glenn McGrath. Jason Gillespie played out the over and then Healy lofted Hansie Cronjes third ball high over square leg for six. He was only the second Australian, after Alan Turner, to win a Test with a six.It was one of the moments of his career, not least because his missed stumping chance had cost Australia in a similarly epic match in Karachi two and a half years earlier. Amid the celebrations, Steve Waugh shouted in his face: Karachis gone, mate! What nobody knew was that it was an accidental knockout punch to win crickets heavyweight championship. Healy had only been aiming to hit a four, but he went through with the shot and connected so sweetly that it sailed over the rope.John Davison off Jacob Oram, Benoni, March 2003 For a six to stay in the memory, a batsman doesnt just need to find the sweet spot of the bat - he needs to find your sweet spot too. A six can become yours for all kinds of reasons - from its trajectory, to the batsman, to how much coffee you had that morning. John Davisons barbaric blow against New Zealand at the 2003 World Cup comes into that category.There is so much to love about it. It was the third six in Jacob Orams over; it made the most beautiful noise off the bat; it was scored by a man who played for Canada, who had already, against West Indies, hammered the World Cups fastest century; it went so high it probably appeared as a UFO on air traffic control displays.The best thing of all might be the gunslingers response, a studied walk down the wicket as if to say, Yeah, no biggie. He was right: it wasnt a biggie. It was monstrous. Andrew Flintoff off Brett Lee, Edgbaston, August 2005 The size of sixes in the modern game has us reaching for our internal thesaurus, or making up our own words: monstrous, huge, mahoosive, thunderbastard. To some, such sixes will always simply be massive - the subconscious result of Andrew Flintoffs massive attack on Brett Lee during the 2005 Ashes.It was an extraordinary shot, a bottom-handed bunt back over long-on. But like so many great scenes, what elevates it further is the dialogue: Geoff Boycotts background cackle and particularly Mark Nicholas infectious commentary: Oh, helloooooo! Massive! MASSIVE! It was my generations confectionery stall.There had already been moments of fantasy and hyper-cricket in the series, but this was off the scale. It wasnt apparent at the time - England were still in danger of going 2-0 down - but this was the moment the 2005 Ashes lost its return ticket to the real world. That Flintoff six is a microcosm of the greatest cricket England fans will ever see and will ever want to see. It is instant serotonin, something that should be bookmarked for a bad day. If I could take a single six with me to the next world, this would be the one. ' ' '