It was early Sunday when two buses carrying the newly crowned Class 1A champion girls and boys basketball teams lumbered south down U.S. 89 from Richfield to Panguitch.
The town’s fire trucks, police cars and ambulances, sirens blaring, greeted the teams 10 miles north of the city of 1,665 residents at about 12:30 a.m.
Tourists spending the night at Panguitch motels must have felt as though they were under attack. The entourage went down the main part of town then hit the side streets.
It was late because about 80 members of the basketball family — and it is a family in every sense of the word — elected to celebrate the titles at a small Richfield Mexican restaurant that was slightly overwhelmed.