On Wednesday March 25^th Waterloo High School hosted the 2009 Exceptional Senior Basketball Game. This game consisted of seniors from all of the local schools such as Marcus Whitman, Red Creek, Honeoye, Canandaigua, Gananda, East Rochester, Newark, Midlakes, Waterloo, Dundee, Desales along with many others who play and cheer together. The basketball players were evenly distributed to two different teams, the blue and the red and played different heats from each of the teams, which lasted five minutes.

The cheerleaders had two practices; both lasted one and a half hours. They had the challenge of learning a one minute dance, with stunts and a cheer plus twenty different sidelines, which each cheerleader brought from their team’s list.

Coach Moore shed some light as to what the selected seniors had to qualify for to be sent to play in this prestigious game. He said, "The league has a meeting, where all the coaches come together and nominate a player (a senior) from each team to play/cheer in the game. Players that demonstrate leadership, positive character throughout the season, had the top statistics (points, rebounds, assists, steals and games played) are seriously considered for the game. It’s always a difficult decision because I, as a coach, don’t want anyone else to feel left out. You want to see all of your seniors play but the league only allows one per team. Jamie Murphy is amazing and no one needs to be reminded of how great he played this past season, Brent Ayers had dealt with injury and wasn’t able to play as much as we all would have wanted him to and that left us with Tyler Stell, a great basketball player." Mr. Moore also said, "All of the coaches attend the game and it’s its nice to see the other seniors all playing together. It’s also nice to see the younger kids that attend the games because the seniors serve as great role-models to them. It drives the younger players to want to play to the best of their abilities so that maybe someday they could be a part of that game."

I asked Tyler what his reaction was when he heard that he had been selected to play in the Exceptional Senior Game, and he has this to say, "It was exciting and a great honor to be playing with some of the best players in the league. It was a great time to show off your skills with and against your peers." Tyler also said, "It was very enjoyable and relaxing playing my last high school basketball game. Everyone went out and just played the sport that they loved and had lots of fun with it." One memory that Tyler will never forget about his last season playing under Coach Moore was going up to Syracuse University and watching the team practice.

Ashley Gaudette was Marcus Whitman’s nominated senior to cheer on her fellow Wildcat. She said, "I was so excited when I heard that I was picked to cheer in the game. I’ve always wanted to get picked for this since I found out about it! It was weird, at first, cheering with the other seniors that we competed against this year but they were all really nice. It was interesting to see all of the different styles of cheering. I loved cheering in my last high school game. It was so much fun, both my last Whitman game and the all-star game. My favorite memory from my last season was being on a team that overcame so many problems, and all the friends I made that I didn’t have during the other seasons."

Tyler Stell and Ashley Gaudette did an amazing job representing Marcus Whitman, and had fun doing it! Congratulations on being selected and good luck in the future!