By DREW GRANTHUM/Sports Writer

My job is a relatively easy one.

I go to sporting events across the county, take some notes, and write stories that give hard-working student-athletes the credit they’re due. I report the facts and to a more subdued level, give the athletes and their families some simple words to chronicle their feats for posterity.

Sometimes though, my simple words can’t do a team or an athlete justice. The words can’t completely recreate every battle, every score and every moment. Facts are tough like that. They don’t leave a lot of room for imagery.

Which is what’s so tough about the Calera girls’ basketball team’s loss in the AHSAA Class 4A State Championship; it’s almost impossible to describe how great an effort they put forth. Sure, Oneonta beat them 51-39, but the game was far closer than the final score suggests.

Words won’t accurately portray how tense a game it was. Sentences can’t recreate the elation of the team and crowd when Tyesha Haynes hit the buzzer beater to put them in the championship game, and they surely won’t illustrate how tough Calera fought the defending champions. Oneonta didn’t have a cakewalk to a title. Coach Knowles’ bunch fought until the very end, and had a few more bounces, shots or rebounds gone the Eagles’ way, this would be a far less somber piece.

How do you sum up a great season, one in which a squad reaches the pinnacle of its sport only to come tumbling down trying to grasp the only goal left for it accomplish?

How do you accurately chronicle how great a post player A’kia Harris was this season, or how clutch Haynes was when she was needed most or even how the team worked as a cohesive unit all season?

How do you establish for eternity that this team didn’t “choke” in the big game, like callous sports fans assume in a loss, and make sure everyone who reads knows they simply came up short?

Calera, you should be proud of this squad. They were a combination of chemistry, fundamental coaching and talent and were fun to watch.

I wish I could sum up just how good they were for you.