Union's Bloody Victory

Union coach Maco Hamilton summed it up best: “I’ve never seen it before.”

During their 66-65 overtime win Thursday against Jackson High School of Mill Creek at the Class 4A boys state basketball tournament, three Titan players wound up with blood on their jerseys.

“Normally we have a blood jersey,” Hamilton said. “But we had three guys with it. It was all over the place.”

That led to players running behind the stands to exchange jerseys. Presumably, they didn’t exchange shorts.

“I had to ask three guys at the end of our rotation to change,” Hamilton said. “That was very unselfish of them. That was hard for me to do.”

That all led to some confusion, however. When some uniforms got cleaned and the players switched back to their original jerseys but failed to inform the scorer, the Titans were assessed a technical foul. That nearly was the difference in the game.

Left unanswered, however, was the most pressing question: Whose blood was it?

“I don’t know,” Hamilton said.

C’mon, coach. The correct answer is, “The other guy’s.”