HP vs AH1

Sorry for the lateness of this update. I’ve been very busy lately and just haven’t had time to write this up. However, with an unexpected stomach bug keeping home from work today I’ve finally got the time.

After the behemoths of last night I was a little worried about what we’d face today. Fortunately looking at the team they weren’t nearly as intimidating as their 5th grade counterparts. HP was holding a 6th grade tournament and so we were playing after one of those games.

I decided to start the five players who were at both practices (only seemed fair) so it was Adam, Jacob, Ben, Jon, and Jack B getting the nod at the start of the game. I was not excited about this group of 5, but they did really well. Of particular note was Adam whose defense was noteworthy. In fact it was the first time he played like I’d seen him play in house league. Perhaps he’s adjusting to the size and speed of the game, at last.

The game is close in the first half actually ending tied at half time. The bad news is that we got into extreme foul trouble. The refs called a weird game with all too many jump balls, but that doesn’t excuse our fouls. I give one of my better half time speeches. I go over to the book to look at how things are and I discover that their #3 is basically their whole offense. I tell my team to focus on him, with his having scored 8 of their 14 points. The third quarter does not go our way and we’re down 25-22 heading into the 4th. The 4th quarter is just insane. Our offense clicks with tons of different kids scoring. We keep getting to with-in 1 but never manage to close the gap all together. In the end it’s our fouls that od us in with their team going 7-8 in the 4th. In particular we fould #3 all too often and he made us pay for it.

It was a disappointing loss because it was a close game and we just couldn’t pull it out. The refs didn’t help with several seemingly obvious fouls against AH not being called in the second half. Oh well.

Quick run down of our players:

Jacob – Continues to get good wide open shots and continues to fail to make them. Was a little better in the post than normal

Job – Made 4 foul shots for us and a 4th quarter basket. One of his better games

Zach – After a poor first half I had him concentrate on running the baseline and this proved more successful for him. In fact on the first play after I told him to do this he got a wide open shot (which he missed) and Jack B was like “Good coaching, Coach”. I told him after the game to expect me to use him more in this way in the future.

Jack A – Fouled out and really didn’t play that well. Got very upset about fouling out.

Josh – Played well in the 4th but had looked lack luster until then.

Ben – Probably our MVP having scored 6 points in the second to keep us in the game.

Henry – A non factor on offense and defense

Gavin – Sat a lot, but played fairly well in the 4th, despite letting his temper get the best of him. In fact he cost us a realistic shot at a 3 by slamming the ball down after they made a shot with 8 seconds left. I was NOT pleased.

Danny – Didn’t turn the ball over a ridiculous amount so that’s improvement right there, and added 4 points to boot.

Adam – Played some terrific defense in the 1st and grabbed some crucial 4th quarter rebounds, quite impressive considering his size.

Jack B – Not one of his best games, not really having done anything on offense or defense for us.

We have two games this weekend, tomorrow against WG, and Sunday against MP. I hope to get the mid season review up before the game tomorrow, but we’ll see.