Image credit Keterok
Triumph mixed with tragedy at Lucolt Oil Stadium last night, as the Ponyville Pounders soundly defeated the Rockton Rough Riders to advance to the Fabulous Four round of the March Mareness basketball tournament. The Pounders’ 85-63 victory was marred by the loss of point guard Castin Ward, who broke his right hind leg in two places while defending a shot attempt by Rough Rider forward Tyler Thorntrot.
The tournament, already the subject of controversy due to it still being called March Mareness when virtually all the players on the teams are stallions, suffered another blow with 6:33 to go in the first half. Ward landed awkwardly after leaping up in the air to contest Thorntrot’s three-point shot, resulting in a gruesome injury that silenced the sellout crowd and caused several players to display extensive amounts of liquid pride. Thankfully, the convention of euthanizing athletes injured on the court fell out of favor several centuries ago, so Ward was taken out to the stadium on a stretcher and to a local hospital, where he received immediate medical care. The sophomore unicorn’s presence and points-scoring prowess amongst the Pounders players will be sorely missed, as he was the only player on the team capable of magically shooting the ball with his horn as opposed to bucking it into the net or dunking it with his teeth.
The Pounders will travel to Canterlanta next weekend for the semifinal round, where they will face off against the hard-nosed Hitchita State Shockers. The winner of that game will move on to battle either the Syracrop Orange or the Detrot Timberwolves for the March Mareness Tournament Championship, after which everypony in Equestria will go back to either waiting for hoofball season to start or swearing that next year they’ll pick Foalida Gulf Coast to go all the way.
Story credit ESPN, 2013
