Road Trip!

So its been awhile since my last update.  I had a post ready from the weekend of our opening tip off tourney but I forgot to actually post it.  so we will just skip that one and go on.  I will say we won our home opener and then had a battle the second day and unfortunately just ran out of gas in the end.  But the thanksgiving trip was a different story.

We went on a long road trip to Claremont, California.  Every year our program tries to go to or near the home town of our upperclassmen, especially if they live a good ways form the area.  Our senior point guard is from the LA area, so off we went to play in the David Wells Classic.  Immediately after landing in Cal, we headed to Disneyland for some down time.  The girls had a blast and it was good to get out and have fun.  The next day was spent adjusting to the time difference and getting ready for the job ahead. 

We played a great game on Friday and gritted out a tough win to the host team and won by 5.  The team really didn't play that great but they pulled it out.  The worst part of the evening was that the refs we had made the NFL replacement refs look like Ed  Hochuli, and that's giving them lots more credit than they deserve. 

Saturday morning we went to the K1 speed track and had a blast flying our go-carts around the track and occasionally into each other.  It was a great way to relax between games and just glad no one got hurt. With our team that's always a plus.

Saturday's game was another battle.  We started off so flat we made a piece of paper look fat.  Nothing was falling, really the only thing that seemed to be going our way is the refs were so much better.  The girls fought hard to keep things close and at halftime were only down 6.  Considering we only shot 18% in the first half, that's and accomplishment to be that close.  The second half has been our downfall over the last few games, but this would be different.

We had a great start to the second half and at one point even had a 6-8 point lead.  But then the atmosphere got cold again.  The girls seemed to be losing steam and soon found us down by 13 point with only about 10 minutes to go.  We called a time out to try and light the fire.  Then when it looked like we found a spark the wind blew it right out.  It went that way for several minutes and then all of the sudden, like a California wild fire rushing down the mountain, we got hot.  It all started with a 3 point bank shot, then one of the girls light out the sky with rockets.  Luckily our point guard kept feeding her the ball in perfect timing so she could catch and shot and in the process broke the school career assist record.  Before we knew it, we were back in it.  We tied it, got a lead, they tied back, we took the lead and a bit more and before we knew it all we needed to do was drain the clock and play smart defense.  With only a few minutes left and a down by 5 all the other team could do was foul and hope for the best.  Luckily we made just enough from the charity strip to keep the lead. Finally with less than 10 seconds to go and a 5 point lead, our defense sealed it with a lock down so good they could even get a desperation shot off at the buzzer. 

That made it a nice round trip, 2-0 in front of our senior point guard's friends and family, her breaking the assist record and our team proving they have what it takes to win close games on the road.  Now on to two more games this week and then a bit a of break.  I think after this weekend everyone will be ready for that.