We planned our vacation with the full knowledge that we had to be back on Saturday so that both boys could participate in pre-season basketball tournaments:
Matthew: Matthew’s team played here in Okemos; I missed the first two games since I was off with Christopher up the road in Perry. Started off the day with a 35-15 loss to Westside. Reports are that Matthew played well on defense but hardly saw the ball on offense. And, as you may have guessed, that we were never really in the game.
Game 2 was against Holt….and the result was better, a 24-17 win. Matthew had a basket in this one.
Game 3 was against the other Okemos team. I was able to watch this game, and I think we won 34-8 or something like that. Unlike last year, where they tried to have two balanced teams, this year they, at first, only had one coach so they had to take the top 11 and then, when the second coach signed up, he got the next 11 kids. So, this result wasn’t entirely unexpected. Matthew had two baskets, one of them from 3-point range (but, the court isn’t marked with the 3-point arc, so, it only counts for two). He’s a scrappy player, always diving for balls and he has a nice stutter-step move that he uses to get into the lane.
There’s six teams in the tourney, the top two move to the final game. One other team was 2-1 after three games, and had a better point differential than us, so, that was it for the team.
Cpher: As mentioned, up in Perry for a 12-team tournament. Started off against Haslett and lost 40-23……the team did not do anything that we practiced and we fell behind early and that was that. Also, where I think we make an honest attempt to get our playing time spread out, I think Haslett kept their good kids out on the floor a lot (Haslett made the championship game; we watched most of it because of delays on our court. They had four kids who never saw the floor in the first half, and one kid who never saw the floor in the entire game. Pretty crappy if you ask me….).
Anyway, Cpher is Cpher; he scored four points from in close and contributed his usual rebounds and defense. He certainly doesn’t play as much as last year, but, he gets his fair share…..he’s solid out there.
Game 2 was against Westside, the 5th grade version of the club that handled Matthew’s team. It’s a see-saw affair that winds up going to overtime, where we pull out the win 30-28. Cpher is as Cpher does; again, four points and the requisite rebounds and defense.
Game 3 is on Sunday; the sort the teams out into flights and we’re in the silver flight, playing the ‘B’ team of one of the local AAU clubs. We win 40-25; we’re up by ten at the half and we’re on cruise control from there. Lots of playing time for everyone…..only 2 points here, but he did have a nice inbounds play where he inbounded the ball and finally did what we’ve been practicing so far, get the ball into a player cutting towards the basket so that he could have the easy lay-up.
We like when other parents take pictures! You’ll note that Cpher has switched numbers this year……..away from 15 and, well, to his favorite number right now…..
Game 4 is for the championship of the silver flight against Williamston….they have the tallest kid we’ll see this year, he’s a full 2-3 inches taller than Cpher and we deploy all three of our big guys a lot in this game to try and counteract his presence. Their coach also whines more than any other coach I’ve seen (and I’ve run into him before in soccer, and had negative thoughts about him then). I did get a kick out of him talking to his team, the constant message was “They are killing us on the boards! Just killing us!”
The center of the 2-3 zone……
Cpher picks up the fouls, 2 in the first half, 2 in the second….he’s battling but making a few mistakes by reaching in at times. No points, some rebounds, and does his share in keeping the other guy under wraps. It’s 21-21 and we’re heading to OT again. This time the result isn’t as great, we lost 25-23.
Matthew soccer: To end the weekend Matthew’s indoor team has a big game, a game against the other team in our division who looks to be pretty good (a group of U11s from the other travel club). Because Cpher’s final game is delayed, I miss all of this game as well. It’s probably a good thing…..the text updates from Mom show it’s not going well, we’re down 2-0, we’re down 3-2, we are missing lots of chances in front of the goals. Goals 3-6 against us are the ones that would have killed me…..Matthew is not on the field and as always our defense is much worse without him, and the other team takes advantage while he’s not there. The final is 6-4, and we have a rematch against them in two weeks.
