The JV girls played their first game of the year on 12/9 against Most Precious Blood. The varsity boys B played right before the girls, so between the JV girls crowd, the leftover varsity boys crowd, and the MPB crowd, the game was well attended. This year’s JV girls team only has two 6th graders. It has six 5th graders. Of these eight girls, three have never played before, so it has a little bit of the feel of a widgets team, trying to fit a bunch of girls together and make a cohesive team. With that said, it wasn’t a big surprise to see a slow start. After a quarter, our girls were down 2-0. We were playing very hard defense, and getting a ton of steals, but we couldn’t get good looks on offense and knock them down. I saw a sign last night at St Vincent de Paul that said “Hustle requires no talent.” I like that sign and that motto was on display early with our girls. All eight players were playing as hard as they possibly could, and that effort was keeping us in it until a few shots started to fall. Erica is not only the tallest girl on the JV team, she’s one of the tallest girls in the whole school. Some tall girls let their height do all the work for them, but not Erica. Erica was playing all out, getting her hands on tons of balls, blocking shots, tipping passes, and generally making life miserable for the MPB girls. She also helped with ball handling, rebounded aggressively, and scored the majority of our points. As she hopefully continues to grow, and works on her offensive skills, she has a chance to be one of the best girls basketball players St Rose has seen, and she is well deserving of the athlete of the week honor.
The two widget boys teams play the same teams through the season, but they play them at different times. So far, the black team has had the tougher schedule, and they’re currently 1-2. The red team has played a couple 3rd grade teams, and they’ve had easy wins, and have had a chance to really work on Play Like a Champion concepts (sharing the ball, playing unselfishly, equal playing time, etc). Last week, our red team beat St James 28-8, to run their record to 3-0. Diallo played very well again, but another 4th grader, Miguel, really stood out. Miguel has as much energy as anyone in the school, and he’s always had lots of athletic ability. He’s starting to harness that energy and ability into a controlled basketball setting, and his basketball skills are really starting to emerge. Miguel can score, and he runs the floor very well. He also runs the point when Diallo’s out. He knows the plays, and he does a good job directing traffic. Miguel’s main strength though is his defense. He is so fast, and so instinctual, that he gets tons of steals. Widget rules require that you stay on your man, and Miguel follows these rules, but you can tell that next year, when he’s allowed to double team, or play zone, or jump the ball, he will be an absolute terror on defense. With Miguel and Diallo as red team leaders, our widget boys red team is in a good position (1st place) going into the Christmas break.
No comments:
Post a Comment