4th Grade-March 19th-20th

Character, that is what we developed this weekend.  In our first game we had a pretty good 916 Select team down 13 in the second half and 8 with only a few minutes to go.  We struggled against the press and were unable to recover eventually succumbing to a scrappy team.  While we did lose our composure for a bit, I want to keep this in prospective.  We had this same problem about 2 months ago and our boys quickly responded to that and have been very composed for 2 months.  We had one bad quarter and will move on and up!

In our second game we had a bit of carryover from the first game.  Unfortunately we could not afford to do that against a very good Predators team.  Again we panicked a bit with their hard press and had the collective energy sucked out of our team.  Down my nearly 30 at the half, our team responded.  With the help of a certain unnamed Dawgs 4^th grade player in the stands, our bench started cheering on our team.  With chants of YBA and defense reminiscent of a high school game, our boys woke up.  We flew around the floor with energy and confidence, cutting the lead to 12.  Our boys forced the Predators coach to put his starters back in.  Once the starters were back in, they still had problems with our boys.  Suddenly the shoe was on the other foot.  We had the opposing team on the run.  Alas, we couldn’t maintain that amount of energy and finally lost the game.  In the middle of this frantic 3^rd quarter I had a very interesting moment.  With all the noise from the crowd, chanting, clapping, and foot stomping, everything went silent with the exception of my thoughts.  I was focusing on the players on the floor and I noticed some very important things.  I saw smiles ear to ear, fists pumping, high fives, red faces and sweat dripping.  In the fourth quarter I looked to bench and saw 3 players that normally don’t get a lot of playing time.  What I saw was more satisfying than a win.  I saw Joey , Noah and Ben sitting side by side dripping sweat, smiling with pride and cheering their teammates on.  Well done boys!

In our final game we played Carson Valley .  We were able to play our second unit and training player quite a bit.  I want to give a nod to all the boys for running the offense, playing good defense and respecting their opponent in a vey lopsided victory.  Congrats goes out to TJ for scoring his first points with YBA!

Overall we had a very emotional weekend.  I saw anger, disbelief, joy, aggression, sadness and pride within the span of a 24 hour period.  We had a very emotionally draining weekend, but I absolutely love the way our boys finished off the second half of the weekend.  We will be a better team and better people for what we went through this weekend.  I’m proud of all our boys and you should be too.  Please help me by remembering what is important.  Praise your sons for what they accomplished in the development of their character this weekend and fill their emptied emotional tanks.