Sanatura 58 Barva 69

Every game against the defending champ Barva had gone down to the wire, except for this one. With three losses in the Torneo de Clausura, Barva found itself in an unfamiliar place in third place in the standings heading towards the playoffs. This is the lowest they have been seeded in nine years. Going into Tuesday night's game, you could sense the urgency from Barva to get back to their winning ways.

Road Trip X2: at Limon

Gimnasio Eddy Bermudez, Limon

Last Sunday, our team got back on the bus to play at Limon for a Sunday afternoon game. By virtue of its location on the Caribbean coast, Limon is easily the hottest venue where we play regularly. Normally, the games are scheduled at night, but with this special Sunday schedule, the game was at 4 pm, which meant an even hotter gym than usual (reminded me of Nicaragua type heat). We pulled out of Desamparados shortly before noon for the second leg of our road trip from hell.

Road Trip X2: at PZ (Part 1)

Riots in Limon over the JAPDEVA strike last month led to our game getting re-scheduled. Little did we know at the time that it would get rescheduled for this past weekend, on the Sunday immediately after our trip to Perez Zeledon. That meant over a weekend we would log 250 kilometers round trip to Perez Zeledon (six hours on a bus) on Friday night and then 320 kilometers to Limon on Sunday (another six hours on the bus). Two tough road trips, two wins.

Sanatura 85 San Ramon 107

Greg Platter slicing through the defense

After a week of family vacation, I came back to a very important game: at home against San Ramon with first place on the line. In what is clearly becoming a three team race this season, this game had a lot of implications for the upcoming Clausura playoffs: home court, bracket position and momentum. One team showed up primed for this important matchup. Unfortunately, that was not our team.