With that, here in bullet form is what we’ve been up to since Halloween.

• Ben finished football season with two games in November.  Highlights of the season:  starting at wide receiver in the last few games, ending the season with four catches for almost 100 yards and  1 touchdown.
• The regular soccer season for both kids ended in early November.
• We celebrated Zeny’s birthday.
• A weekend trip to Chicago where we saw Ted’s mom, caught up with some old college friends,  went to the very exciting Northwestern v. Iowa game, and where Ben met up with the director of the Integrated Science Program, the honors science program that Ted majored in.  Ben was able to find out a lot about the program, and chat with some professors and students about the academics and student life at NU.
  
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• Ben’s team won their post-season soccer tournament.

• Thanksgiving with Ted’s brother and his wife, but without Ted’s mom this year, who was recovering from surgery and unable to travel.
• A weekend trip to Philadelphia to visit the Franklin Institute, to make up for a field trip that Kate missed because we were on our way to Chicago the day her class went.  We also saw the Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall, and other notable Philadelphia sites.
  
• Basketball season started for both kids.
• Kate had her school chorus concert
• Christmas!

Kate’s team, for which Ted was the head coach and Ben the assistant, didn’t win a single game during the regular season, except for their last one.  Unlike every other team in the league, Ted made sure that every girl got to play point guard and handle the ball during the season.  He emphasized passing and teamwork, even if sometimes the best ball handlers weren’t out on the court.  Sometimes, ok most of the time, this resulted in a loss. 

But the post-season was different.  By this time, the girls had figured out how to move around on the court and get open, how to look for an open player, how to rebound, how to protect the ball on the dribble, and other fundamentals of the game.  Ted also mainly rotated his best four ball handlers at point guard, to minimize turnovers.  And it worked!  The tournament is double elimination, so they made it into the finals even after losing a game to the regular season champions.  The road to the finals was quite exciting, including one game that Ben had to coach on his own since Ted was on his way to Amsterdam.  I updated Ted with text messages, getting the last one in about the win just before the plane doors closed. 

The finals was a rematch against the regular season champs.  This team featured the best girl in the league, by far.  Remember that this is 4th grade girls basketball, where scores of 10-8 are normal.  This girl, however, regularly put up 20+ points for her team, and oftentimes she was the only scorer.  She is also great on defense, getting lots of steals and then taking off for an easy layup.  She was pretty much automatic on layups, although not so great on jump shots.  Her team’s reliance on her proved to be their downfall, however.  Having figured out that she was not such a sure thing on perimeter shots, Ted made sure that Kate’s teammates knew they would need to shut her down on the drive.  Her assigned defender did a great job cutting her off whenever she tried to drive to the basket, and the other girls did a great job of picking her up whenever the defender needed help.  Even with all that, the girl still scored all 14 of her team’s points.  But nobody else scored for them.

It was a different story for Kate’s team.  Four of the six girls available for the team scored and all played excellent team defense.  Kate got a key block on the other team’s star player in the first few minutes of the game that set the tone for the defense.  And their ball handling was excellent, forcing their opponent to get overly aggressive and foul to try to force a turnover.  It resulted in a very exciting 16-14 win!

This first clip shows the last few seconds of the game, as Kate was running out the clock.  She had just been fouled in an attempt to steal the ball, and since at this age there is no backcourt defense and the ball can stay in the backcourt for 10 seconds, she only had to kill the clock.  The best part of the clip is the celebration.  You can see Kate dropping her ball and jumping into Ben’s arms, and then later being hoisted up by Ted.  The girls were so excited and thrilled at what they accomplished!

The second clip is the awards ceremony, where if you listen closely, you can hear Ted explaining that he had just flown in from Amsterdam on Friday (the game was on Sunday) and that he was leaving for South Africa right after the game.  I think the parents really appreciated his dedication to the team.

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.

Kate, not being the first seed, had to play a second game despite winning their first.  Unfortunately, they lost that second game so are now in the losers’ bracket, which means one more loss and they’re out.  But at least they get to play a second weekend.

And pictures from last weekend’s games.  We head into the real fun this weekend, with the tournament.  Ben’s team is seeded #1, after an undefeated season.  Kate’s team …. is not seeded #1, although they did topple the #1 seed last weekend in the last regular season game! 

Ben also started playing futsal on Sunday.  He loves playing since it’s a small field with only 4 field players.  You are actively involved no matter where you are on the field.  Ben scored 5 goals, and since he primarily plays defense in outdoor soccer, this was a rare treat for him.  No pictures from futsal since those lighting conditions are even more dismal than basketball, although I might try to bring my little Flip camera next week.  If I’m succesful, I’ll post clips here.

Ben’s game was on Sunday and I had a freshly charged battery!  But no memory cards.  I had forgotten to put them in the camera bag I use for basketball (my soccer bag is one that will accommodate the camera with a long lens already mounted, whereas I use the 85 1.8 to shoot basketball).  So of course I have NO pictures from that game.  And it’s too bad, since th Ben also had a good game, including 6 points in the 4 th quarter, with his last basket being the game winner. So frustrating, but now my bag is all packed, and double and triple checked.