The temperatures continue to be above normal, the sun is out almost everyday, yet when am I feeling the winter doldrums. Perhaps it is the realization, not that the girls teams are invincible in any way, but rather parent's delusions on the invincibility of their kids, and the fallibility of others.
Maja: Monday's game against Hazleton was there toughest game of the season thus far... for three quarters. Three quarters of play had Hazleton only up by 4. The problem, the first quarter before those three was a 22-6 blowout for Hazleton. 0-16 from the field, not rebounding, and despite everyone knowing the M.O. of their shooting guard, let her sit unmolested under the their basket while folks were scrumming for rebounds. Once won, the ball was chucked downcourt for an easy lay-up
Over
and over
and over again.
Add that she was also at least 5 of 7 from beyond the arc, it was a learning experience to be positive, the butt-kicking they needed to be a bit more negative.
And with a twenty-point loss, all the happiness and kumbaya emotions of some of the parents at the team's holiday get-together evaporated within seconds of the final buzzer. Calls for the heads of the head of the program, the Athletic Director, even folks who know nothing about basketball. A lot a heat-of-the-moment very erroneous statements were made, and I did my best to put some of parents back in their place.
I was going to go on a rant here about competition and the lack of it during our classification, but being the research guy I am I looked up a few things and discovered (a) Maja's team is probably the third best at their level the the district (out of 12 districts in Pennsylvania and (b) Their enrollment moved them up a classification for the playoffs. Basically the fall league we played in Scranton is the gauntlet they'll need to go through for Districts, then States, unless their population of females in the high school drops by about thirty schools. Oddly Hazleton is not in our class, but 6A, the largest schools there are.
All that in the past, I rushed to pick up my car from the auto shop to make the nearly hour drive to Berwick. Not too surprisingly, they started off aggressive, but still a bit flat with their shot selections. Of course, the Berwick point guard plays on the same AAU team, a grade between Maja and Millie, and here shooting was lights out. In fact, she scored all the team's points in the first quarter and tied the game at the buzzer.
By halftime, Maja's team took control and slowly pulled away to an 18-point victory.
The girls are off from school Monday, but have a much anticipated game against last year's toughest opponent, Dallas. Most of the Freshmen girls from the team last year are destroying it as Varsity starters, so I anticipate a little easier time against the next wave (I have my reliable sources).
Millie: I made the mistake of mentioning the 7th and 8th grade girls to Millie local team coaches. Their jaws dropped in disbelief when I told them the starters, and the the team was (spoilers) .500 at bath 7th and 8th. Now I have always assumed the 6th grade bunch will take the world by storm in five months when they're eligible for school ball. I'm also a realist and team builder who knows that 25-50% of the girls will probably quit, and no team in their right minds fields one with under ten.
They played the worst team in the whole league (who is getting better each week), and easily won 32-6. Unfortunately only one player shot over 50% (and the team's big barely made it over that) and everyone not named Millie missed more foul shots than they made (Millie was 1-for-1, Rest of team was 1-for 8). Luckily they outrebounded the team 2-to-1, and that might be good enough at this grade, but when they play up, they'll be just as inadequate as the girls the coaches scoffed at.
Try as I do not like the crazy driving and bending of rules for Millie's Wolfpack team, everyone enjoys playing with each other, Millie isn't the only one passing to the weaker girls, and while the other team's aren't laughing, the Wolfpack girls are enjoying every minute.
An hour and ten minute drive to Minersville to see them demolish a new team 49-11 had all those elements, plus Millie hitting a 3-pointer and doing and amusing dance afterwards.
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| I got the shot, but not the dance. 'Twas quite amusing. |
Maja had her winter dance recital up in Dallas, so we did that, swung down for the 7th/8th games, and made it Kingston Rec for a 4:50pm Wolfpack game. If her normal team dominated them last week, the Wolfpack just got their speed up and put it on cruise controls for a 20+ point win.
7th/8th Grade Girls: Between Millie's remote game on Saturday and a game on Thursday that conflicted with Maja's, I've missed four of the six games this week. They lost both their Thursday games, one a blowout, on a one-point loss, and won all four of their weekend league games. I'll just add reconstructing the score book and maintaining averages to keep respectable stats. Life is more than points or fouls.
Local Rec: As ridiculous as all that sounds, even crazier is that I'm back and better than ever with the local rec league. I need to post the playoff schedules for the next few week, and format and upload the brackets. I'm posting social media messages and talking with folks, heck I even ran scoreboard for the final girl's game on Saturday. So long as I can complete everything I promised this week, I think I should be golden.
Things are far from shambles, but there's so much more than needs to be done. Gotta find some folks willing to step up and help., or else we're treading water at best.
After watching some of the games, I have come to the conclusion that we are no better off or worse off than the half-dozen other rec leagues in the area without their own dedicated space. In fact, in some ways we're superior, and should continue improving upon those areas. So long as the playoffs work, I guess it's new year, new outlook.
