Tourney Report: Game 1 vs. HP (A Team)

The day of the tournament was finally here. I get to the facility nice and early. I have two games to chose from watching, with HP playing in one and MP2 in the other (I had originally thought it would be MP1 in this tourney, but evidentially not). I decided to watch the HP game and while I did so I decided to keep stats myself, just to see how hard/easy it is to do. One of the parents there and I started talking. HP was playing this team called Karzen, which turns out to be their coach’s name. The team I was watching, in the B conference, were really mostly 3rd graders, with their connection being attendance at a tennis facility in a nearby suburb. I later learned that this was their first game, which you would never know. However, while I was watching HP has handling them easily.

Right on time, my team started to arrive. The HP team had already arrived much earlier (why do kids need to be 45 minutes early to a game at their own facility?) and we established that I was to be the home team. This caused some consternation from the HP team, as they figured since they were at home they’d be home, but it was agreed we’d wear our home jerseys as it was scheduled.

As I’m sitting there, who should arrive, but Michael. Michael, for those of you who didn’t read my dynasty, and I had a long meeting at the end of the baseball season. The baseball season had not been particularly well run and I had written a long letter with very constructive suggestions for the future. Michael was the boss, at the time, of the person who ran the baseball league. We talked for a moment, with him being surprised o see me, as he knew I wasn’t an HP coach, but I explained I was coaching Glencoe. Then, in a moment which is VERY unlike me, I said “And we’re going to win your tournament.” Did I really believe this? Not so much, but the words came flowing out of my mouth.

We finally get to game time. It is clear from the start that this will be a good game. We get off to a quick 2-0 lead before falling behind. I somehow messed up my sub sheet and so I end up winging it. The game is fairly low scoring in the first 6-8 minutes, remembering that we’re playing two 20 minute halves with a running clock which only stops in the final two minutes of a half or for a time-out. The game opens up a bit after that and HP pulls ahead, by as many as 4 or 5. However, right before half we narrow the gap and on a late shot we actually pull ahead by a point.

At half time, I remind them that we can be a great second half team. I feel confident that this game is one we can win. They’re a good team, but we do tend to do better in the second half. We go out there and it’s neck and neck for a while. Just as we look to be pulling ahead, we hit a brick wall and HP comes roaring back. Highland Park pulls up by 5. Despite our best efforts we end up losing by 3. It was a disappointing loss to be sure, since this was a team we could have beaten.

We were not the happiest team in the world after this loss. And there was a fair amount of anxiety over the fact that our next opponent was the JCC. It was hard to think that we wouldn’t start of the tourney 0-2.

Luckily we had a little over an hour to kill before our game. I took in a game between HP and MP2. HP, despite having a comfortable lead going into the second half of their first game, ended up losing the game in OT. HP never bounces back and gets destroyed by MP2. It was a bit of awful sportsmanship as the final score was something like 51-19 and unlike some of our lopsided victories, MP2 played all out the whole game, though they did have their reserves in the game for most of the second half. It really made me mad to see them so needlessly run up the score.

The game on the court we were to play on finally ended and we started to warm-up against our foes, JCC.

Sorry for the slowness of this update. I hope to have the JCC update tomorrow. I do promise to be caught up before our next game on Sunday (no practice Friday).