Kate’s team played out their Cinderella story this weekend, and the title of this post says it all. They were dead last in the standings, having lost every regular season game except for the last one. But they really turned it on in the post-season and won the tournament championship yesterday, knocking off the #1 seed with a 2-point victory!! The other team has the best player in the league, a girl who is a sure lock to play select basketball next year when she’s eligible. This girl scored nearly all that team’s points throughout the season and regularly scored over 20 points in a game — this in a league where a score of 10-8 is not uncommon.
But the girls were tenacious on defense, clogging the lane and forcing her to hurry her shot or pass off. This gave Kate’s team a great opportunity to force a turnover since the other girls didn’t have the ball skills to withstand a pressure defense. Kate’s team executed well and had great ball movement, allowing them to find the open player.
It’s been quite a playoff season for the Stars. Last Sunday, Ben coached them to victory in the quarter-finals, while I gave Ted minute by minute updates via text as he sat on a plane waiting to push back from the gate. Then Ted flew back on Friday from Amsterdam so he could coach this weekend, and left immediately from the championship game for South Africa. As he said after the game, however, it was well worth the extra 20 hours of flight time!
I’ve got video coming later this week, but that needs to be trimmed down first.
