Tag: youth sports (Page 3 of 24)

Our weekend was pretty boring, other than a bunch of basketball Saturday, so I’m changing things up for this week’s posts. I’ll begin by recapping L’s hoops then get to some Jayhawk Talk later this week.

In our last volume in this series, I detailed a pretty rough week for L. This post will have a decidedly better vibe and includes another milestone in her young career.

Thursday CHS hosted New Palestine. I was a little worried in warmups as NP had a very tall sophomore who was draining 3 after 3. Our only JV girl with size has moved up to varsity full time, and I did not like the prospect of 5’6” freshmen trying to guard a 6’2” sophomore. Fortunately she wasn’t nearly as good when she was being defended as when she was casually throwing in shots during pregame and had no effect on the game.

It ended up being the easiest win of the year to this point. The Irish steadily built a lead throughout the game and were up by 22 going into the fourth quarter. The starters all rested and the backups held on for a 44–28 win.

L was really good. She hit her first shot – a long 2 from just inside the arc – then three of her next four. She reached double figures for the first time, ending with11 points on 5-of–7 shooting, but went just 1–3 from the line. She added 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, and ZERO turnovers. She was on the floor for 20 of the first 21 minutes before the fourth quarter.

The varsity game wasn’t much of a contest, either. CHS raced out to an early lead and never let up, winning by 19.

That game had some interesting moments.

We’re not sure why, but two normal CHS starters began the game on the bench. They didn’t check in until late in the first quarter and then only played spotty minutes the rest of the game. One has been injured, the other sick, but they were both acting normal. More on them in a moment.

Between weird lineup rotations, the big early lead, and L only playing three quarters of JV, I wondered if she might get a decent chunk of time in the second half.

So I was shocked when she ran to the scorer’s table a minute into the second quarter. Once she checked in, she didn’t leave the court until halftime. Honest-to-goodness varsity minutes!

She did ok. She grabbed a couple rebounds. She missed an open look from 3 against the NP zone. She hit a layup but was called for shuffling her feet before she took her first dribble. She did have a turnover but otherwise she handled herself really well in her six-plus minutes on the court.

She sat the entire third quarter as two of her freshman JV buddies got to play, then checked in for mop-up during in the final minutes of the game.

There was some other excitement. NP had a girl who was a great athlete but not a great player. She threw her body all over the place trying to make plays. She would make a great move to the basket, then hit the bottom of the rim with her shot.

She crashed into one of our girls on a rebound and got smacked in the face. No foul was called since she initiated the contact, but she went to the floor holding her eye. The officials stopped the game to check on her and seconds later T’ed her up. I figure refs are going to give you some leeway when you get hit in the face, so she must have said something really bad to earn the T. Later she took another smack in the face and played with a tissue hanging out of her nose to stop the bleeding. She had started the game with a big bruise on her face. Tough chick.

Understandably she was a little frustrated and began complaining about every call. She was very lucky she didn’t get another T because of how demonstrative she was a couple times.

Her dad, or at least another NP dad, did get ejected, though. I couldn’t hear what he said but several of their parents had been loud all night. He must have crossed the line as well because a ref stopped the game, pointed at him, and asked the CHS athletic director to escort him out of the gym.

Fun times!

To the injured girl’s credit, I heard her apologizing to one of her coaches for getting T’ed up as they walked to the bus.

Saturday we played at Heritage Christian, a 3A school about five minutes from Cathedral. Ten or so years ago they had one of the best programs in the country, winning multiple state titles and sending girls to places like UConn. They aren’t quite that good anymore, and we knew from basketball friends that their JV was bad.

L got off to a quick start in the JV game, hitting a couple shots and one-of-two free throws early. She also had five steals in the first nine minutes of the game. HC could not dribble and she took advantage.

About three minutes before halftime one of HC’s bigger girls crashed into L and fouled her. She knocked L over, lost her balance, and then landed with all her weight on L’s back. It looked bad. L was down for a minute or so before she could get up and walk off the court crying. She sat out the rest of the half and when the third quarter started remained on the bench. She took some Motrin S offered her but didn’t complain. We were cruising so she watched the entire second half next to the coaches. We ended up winning by 27.

L didn’t sit the entire second half just because she got hurt. Varsity was going to be short two players – those two who were benched to start the game Thursday – and several JV girls were going to have to play up. Both of the missing players are soccer players and chose to play in a soccer showcase rather than high school basketball. I wondered if their minutes were reduced Thursday because of their decision Saturday, but L didn’t think so.

Anyway, the game starts, our best player makes a couple dumb plays, and 90 seconds into the game L checks in. I thought she would play 30 seconds while the coach yelled at our star, then she’d check right back out. But L stayed on the court the rest of the first quarter. She missed an open 3 – seems like she hasn’t hit one in a game in about three weeks – but handled herself well. She showed no ill effects from the earlier crushing.

The highlight of the day for us was when she took an inbounds pass, dribbled up court, weaved around a screen, and went straight to the hoop and laid it in.

Varsity points! In December! In the first quarter of a close game!

I’m a little disappointed they didn’t stop the game to honor the moment, but it was a road game and I’m not in charge of these things.

It was the most confident play she’s made all year. I told her if she can do that in a varsity game, she can do it in a JV game.

Same story in the third quarter. She was the first off the bench and then didn’t leave the court again until the end of the fourth quarter. I didn’t track it as closely as I do in JV, but I’m estimating she played 20–22 minutes. She took four shots, only making that layup. Other than committing one foul, she didn’t check any other columns in the box score. But she looked comfortable, moved the ball, and even brought it up when they double-teamed our best player in the backcourt.

The game was pretty great. We had the ball up one with 19 seconds left and called a timeout. Whatever play our coaches set up we ran wrong, because HC’s best player stole the pass and drove for a potential game-winning layup. This girl is a D1 recruit and somehow missed it. But HC got the rebound, gave her the ball again, and we fouled her with :00.5 left. She made the first, missed the second, and we went to OT.

L had played her five quarters for the day so had to sit and watch the extra time. Which ended up being eight minutes because we were still tied after the first overtime period. Fortunately our girls buckled down in the second extra frame and won by nine. Our best player, a junior who played for HC as a freshman, scored 26. Our center had 18 and 16. Our third regular starter had 17 and 7. It was a fun day.

L was very happy after the game. Everyone was high-fiving her and telling her that she did great. She said her coaches told her she’s improved a lot and earned the minutes she played.

She still has a long way to go, but she’s gone from turning the ball over on her first play of her high school career to getting serious minutes in a varsity win. All within six or seven weeks.

A pretty good week for JV, varsity, and L.

Their reward? The undefeated, #2 4A team in the state tomorrow.

A kind of bizarre and not very successful week for L on the court, with one very notable exception.

Tuesday CHS played Zionsville, where a travel teammate goes to school. L came out firing early, hoisting six 3-pointers in the first half. She missed them all, but was fouled on one and hit two-of-three free throws. She also had 2 rebounds, an assist, three steals, and no turnovers in the first half.

However, she did not play at all in the second half. She later told us that late in the first half and again in the locker room at halftime, she nearly passed out. The trainer did a check on her, and everything was fine, but decided it was safest to keep her off the court.

Not sure if it was just low blood sugar, a hint of a bug, or something else. She said once whatever it was passed she felt fine. But she only played half the game, the first time this season she’s played less than 25 minutes. CHS lost by four. L would have dressed for varsity again had she been ok to play.

Thursday they took on Guerin, the Catholic school in Hamilton County, where we used to live. L was excited about this game because Guerin has a lot of girls she played against in CYO, most of their good freshmen were playing on the varsity team, and we had heard their JV was bad.

So much for all of that. L had one of her worst games of the year. She was 0–6 from the field (0–3 on 3’s) and did not score. She had four more turnovers. She did play the whole game. Well, all but two minutes. As usual we couldn’t get any offense going and dropped the game by five.

L was involved in a key moment in the game. We were down by just two with under a minute to play when she drove, shot, and drew a foul. The shot missed but she was going to the line with a chance to tie.

Only the referees claimed the contact was before the shot. Girls from both teams had already lined up along the lane and L was at the free throw line waiting for the ball. It seems like everyone but the ref knew that L got fouled in the air. No idea what that dude was looking at. Naturally we didn’t score on off the inbounds and that was kind of the game.

So that game sucked all around.

However…

L again dressed for the varsity game, which was a blowout as CHS was up big the entire second half. I wondered if the benches would get cleared. Sure enough, with just under 2:00 left the Guerin coach sent in her reserves. The CHS coach followed a moment later. L ran to the scorer’s table to check into her first varsity game with a big grin on her face.

Amazingly, she played better than in the JV game. And by that I mean she didn’t do anything negative. She grabbed a rebound. She came close to an assist and had an unofficial hockey assist on another basket. High school is just like college: when the benchwarmers score, the starters go nuts. That was fun. Those 99 seconds seemed to outweigh L’s poor performance in the JV game, as she was super happy afterward.

Saturday we traveled about 45 minutes to Eastern Hancock, the #2 ranked 2A team in the state. We learned the day before that EH was dealing with a lot of injuries and had requested that the JV game only be two quarters.[1] L was, again, pumped, because she figured they were bad and this might be the chance to get another (half) win.

EH’s JV had five girls. Two of them were solid, the other three sucked. Yet our girls still couldn’t run competent offense. It was more of the same: causally passing the ball around without ever really looking to score. Still, we had a six-point lead with about three minutes to play when L had an open look for three. While her shot was in the air I thought, “If she makes this, the game is over.” She missed. The game was not, in fact, over. Nice freaking jinx, dad.

EH threw a press at us after their next make. Our standard press breaker is to in-bound to L, she probes the defense, then if she sees a trap coming she’ll dump the ball to another girl who attacks up the side and reverses to L in the middle if she’s trapped. This has worked very well all year. Saturday the other girl dribbled into a triple team on three straight possessions and lost the ball each time, all turning into EH buckets. That morphed into a 13–3 run to end the half-game, and another (half) loss for the Irish.

L was kind of bad again. 0–4 (0–2) from the field. 1–2 from the line. Two rebounds, an assist, a steal, and four turnovers. Turnovers have been a problem lately. Sometimes she makes shitty passes. Sometimes she isn’t strong enough with the ball. Sometimes she makes a good pass and her teammates don’t catch it. It’s really an all three phases thing right now, and she needs to find a way to be better with the ball.

We could tell she was straight-up pissed after the game. Fortunately she dressed for varsity so we didn’t have to deal with her for a bit.

I got roped into keeping the book for the varsity game, which ended up being a very good one. EH has five seniors back from a team that lost in semi-state last year. They added an amazing freshman, who scored 21. Both teams had six-point leads at one point. One of L’s buddies who is playing up from JV scored a career-high 12. The game was tied at 50 with under a minute left when that EH freshman hit a 3 to break the tie and EH won by three. The EH players and fans were very excited to beat a class 4A team, even if the Irish are just 3–7. For what it’s worth, the varsity has played the 12th toughest schedule in the state, across all classes.

Three games, three losses, and L scored 3 total points. I guess she actually just played two games. Aside from getting into the varsity game Thursday, it was not a great week for her. JV is now 2–8. The good program news is the freshman team is undefeated. We asked L if she would rather play with them. She was very much against that idea.

Two games last week. One of them was the biggest night of L’s young career.

Tuesday we played Ben Davis, a west-side of Indianapolis school that is the second-biggest in the state.[1] Their athletic program is generally quite good. Their football team just won the 6A state title and their boys basketball team was undefeated 4A state champs in March. The girls hoops program made it to semi-state last season. Back in the day – 2000–2009 – they won four state titles in ten years, two of those undefeated seasons, and in 2009 were crowned national champions by USA Today. But they were just 1–6 coming into our game.

The JV game was pretty similar to the Warren Central game a week earlier. BD was far more physical and athletic, plus they were older, and dictated almost all of the action. It didn’t help that our only decent inside player could just play one quarter so she was eligible to play in the varsity game, filling in for our injured center. We ended up losing by eight but had trailed by 12–16 for most of the second half.

L genuinely got beaten up. She was limping after the game because of one collision. She had big claw marks on her leg from a loose ball pileup. And her left arm was sore because someone landed on it in another scrum.

She played all but 58 seconds of the game, scoring 5 points on 2–7 shooting from the field (1–3 on 3s). She added a couple rebounds and five turnovers. She was matched up with sophomores and juniors all night, so I was proud of how she hung in.

BD’s varsity won by eight. They had a player who hit her first five shots of the game – four were 3s – and that was pretty much the difference.

Thursday Center Grove came to CHS. Their varsity team was ranked #3 in the state, but were coming off their first loss of the year. They have a girl who is going to Villanova next year. Unfortunately our center who is going to Nova to play volleyball was still out with a concussion.

Fortunately their JV team wasn’t quite as strong. In what was truly the ugliest quarter of basketball I’ve seen this year, we had a 7–1 lead after the first quarter thanks to a banked-in 35-footer at the buzzer. We only scored two in the second quarter but still led by one, before giving up a 17–7 run in the third quarter. We made our own run late, but couldn’t finish the comeback and lost by two.

L probably had her best game of the year. She tied her career high with nine points, hitting three of four shots (1–1 on 3s). She finally decided to drive and had two beautiful blow-bys that she got fouled on. Each time her shot rimmed out. Each time she hit one-of-two free throws. She played fantastic defense, too, the best I’ve ever seen from her. She made it impossible for whoever she was guarding to get into the lane. She had a rebound, an assist, and three steals. She had three more turnovers, but only one of those was because of an error she made. She actually got to sit out a little more this game, playing 26:40.[2]

Her middle school and travel ball buddy, also L, who went to a rival high school came and watched. I’ve seen her a few times since school started, but it was my first time seeing her mom since August. We either coached together, I kept score for her when she coached, or we sat together for the last six years in both CYO and travel ball, so that was fun.

After the game Other L was talking to some of the St P’s girls who cheer for CHS while we were waiting for L to come out of the locker room. Then Other L yelled my name and pointed at the court with a big grin on her face. L was pulling on a varsity warmup shirt with a goofy grin of her own.

That’s right, seven games into her high school career L got to dress for the varsity game against the #3 team in the state! We were all pretty excited. It was a shame she was a sweaty mess otherwise I would have gotten a picture.

She didn’t get into the game. I didn’t expect her to, even as CG easily won by 16. Maybe if CG had cleared their bench there would have been a chance but even that was unlikely.

Put that all together and I think Thursday was the best day of her season, so far. Would have been nice to win the JV game to top it off. A third of the way into the season, both varsity and JV are now 2–5.

The Irish have three games this week. Varsity plays the #13 4A team tonight, a 3A Catholic school that starts a bunch of freshmen L played against in CYO Thursday, then the #2 2A team Saturday.

Time to catch up with L’s exploits on the hardwood.

Two Fridays ago we traveled to North Vernon, IN, about 90 minutes south, nearly all the way to Louisville. The varsity team was playing the #14 team in the state, which features a senior who signed with Michigan State earlier this month. She averaged 22 & 12 as a junior and is ranked in the top 60 in the country. We weren’t sure if she was the one good player down there, or just a sign of a good program, so had no idea what to expect from their JV squad.

It ended up being a super entertaining and fun game, at least as much as a JV game with dodgy offense and indifferent defense can be. It was tied after one quarter, we trailed by two at halftime, led by four at the end of three, and ended up losing by two. We had a six-point lead early in the fourth quarter and missed a couple chances to extend. Our best inside player only played the first quarter so she would be eligible for the entire varsity game, and her absence really hurt us on the boards.[1]

L played pretty well. She scored nine points on 4–7 shooting, hitting two long jumpers. She had a rebound, three assists, two steals, and two turnovers. She played roughly 25 of the 28 minutes. She made a free throw with two seconds left to cut the margin to two, then intentionally missed the second but we couldn’t get the rebound to try to tie.

The funniest aspect of the night was how the PA announcer kept saying L’s name wrong. When he introduced the starting lineups, he said our last name in the way people have been mispronouncing it my whole life, but which makes no sense to me. There’s no U in our name, but people are always adding it.

Then, once L started hitting baskets, the announcer called her “Lisa.”

Lisa.

Multiple times.

She heard him because she was shaking her head and laughing after one of her makes.

I thought about being That Dad and going down to correct the guy working the mic. But I figured if he was imagining letters in both her first and last names, he probably either wouldn’t remember my corrections or would be so flustered it would make things worse for the entire team.

Our varsity lost by 17 and it was never close. The Michigan State recruit scored 17 and had over 10 rebounds. She is a nice player. The real issue was letting a sophomore score 23. I guess it is more than a one-girl program. You let two kids combine for 40 points in a high school game and you’re probably going to lose.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving we were at Warren Central for a boy-girl JV doubleheader. This is significant since L has a boyfriend these days, and he’s on the boy’s team, so the assumption was we’d watch her game then hang around to watch his.

Only wrinkle in that plan was the Warren girls smacked the Irish around pretty good. We were down 12 at the end of the first quarter, and down as many as 19 multiple times. We ended up losing by nine but it’s not like we went on some big run.

L had a truly rough night. She played 24 minutes and did not score, taking just two shots. She did have a lifetime-high six rebounds, but balanced that with seven turnovers. That was indicative of the entire team: any positives were outweighed by bigger negatives.

I thought she actually played fantastic defense. She just kept checking girls who could make varsity-level shots. One of her best defensive possessions of the game, in which she had a girl completely locked up on three different moves, ended with that girl hitting a step-back jumper from 18 feet. I had to remind her later sometimes you do everything right and the other girl just hits a great shot. You can’t let the result get you down.

The coaches were on the entire team pretty hard, and jumped on L specifically a few times. She’s never really had to deal with coaches like that, and it has been a tough transition. Tuesday it was a little overwhelming for her. I don’t think it helped that both of her sisters were in attendance and she put extra pressure on herself that night. There were some tears after the game. We hung around for a few minutes of the boys game, but she wanted to get the hell out of the gym pretty quickly. I don’t blame her.

Saturday was a super doubleheader, with both the boys and girls playing JV/varsity double-dips against a school that traveled from down near Louisville. The schedule had the girls varsity playing first in the main gym followed by boys varsity, while in the auxiliary gym the boys JV played first followed by the girls.

The girls varsity game was faaaaantasic, with the teams trading leads all night, a few crazy-curious calls by one specific ref, and a super exciting final minute. With the game tied, CHS went up on a basket by our senior center with about 20 seconds left. JHS came down and got a running layup to tie with about four seconds left. After a timeout, CHS inbounded to our best perimeter player, who fumbled the ball, took a couple dribbles to half court, and let it fly. Swish, ballgame.

Last second shot by @JaedaWilson2025 breaks the tie! @cathedralgbb wins ☘️🏀☘️🏀 @gochsathletics @GoCathedral pic.twitter.com/BEDSqlVdMr

— Lacey Nix (@LaceyNix) November 26, 2023

If you watch the video closely you might recognize a guy in a green shirt in the upper row who called the basket good before most of the folks.

This was our first time doing the reverse schedule thing, so we hustled up to the aux gym thinking the JV game might be about to start. Nope, everything was on hold and the warmup clock hadn’t even started yet. Made sense since the JV coaches were both on the varsity benches, along with several girls from both teams who were double-rostered. We’ll know better for next time.

JV got a relatively easy eight-point win. They were up by 12–19 almost the entire night and got sloppy in the final minutes of the game. L was solid. Her stats weren’t gaudy – she made one shot, hit one free throw, had one rebound, one assist, one steal, and two turnovers – but she was much more steady than she had been the previous Tuesday. She again played 24–25 minutes.

CHS swept the boys games, too, so it was a fun night all around and she was in a much better mood on that ride home.

The girls JV and varsity are both 2–3 on the season now.

Two games this week, and five over the next 12 days.

Welcome to the first post in a new, recurring series in these parts. L started her high school basketball career Tuesday night, and I think that deserves a clearly identified set of entries to document her adventures.

The season opener was against the Jesuit school not too far from our house, BPHS. We have good friends who have a son who goes there and it was fun to see him working as a team manager when we walked in. He was in C’s class at St P’s, I coached him in soccer a couple times, and we are still close with his parents. He ran over and said hello and gave C a hug, while his mom showed up later and sat with us.

When we got to our seats L was trying to get my attention from across the court as they warmed up. She was saying something with exaggerated mouth movements. At first I wondered if she was telling me she forgot her water bottle, which she did for their scrimmage two weeks ago. But C caught on to what she was saying quicker, “Oh, she’s starting!” That was my expectation, but I could tell L was excited about it, so I gave her a big thumbs up.

What gets a thumbs down, though, was BPHS’ sound system not working. They lined the teams up to announce starters, paused for a few minutes, and when they couldn’t get the microphone to work scrapped introductions. So we were robbed of hearing her name called before her first high school game. I will hold this against BPHS as long as I live.

On to the game. CHS won the tip, L got the ball, and she sat up the offense. Keep in mind every day when I pick her up from practice she complains how they only work on defense and haven’t done anything on offense. I figured this was a slight exaggeration, but I’m not there. Anyway, she dribbled to the right wing, stopped, waited for a cutter who wasn’t sure what to do, and tried to perform one of the worst dribble handoffs I’ve ever seen. The girl guarding L ripped the ball away and headed up court. One play, one turnover. Not the start I was hoping for.

But L raced back and blocked that girl’s shot! She doesn’t get a lot of blocks so that was a solid recovery.

The whole game had a ragged quality like that play. Lots of tossing and hoping instead of smart passes on offense. BPHS was very physical on defense – I wish they handed out programs so I could see how many of their girls were sophomores and juniors – and any half-assed offense by CHS was blown up. The Braves led by five after the first quarter, seven at halftime, and nine at the end of the third quarter.

BPHS hit the first shot of the fourth quarter to go up 11. The key to their lead was hitting four threes to CHS’ zero. That math adds up, I double-checked.

With about four minutes left it was still a nine-point game. Then something happened, I’m not sure what, and the Irish started playing better offense and getting stops on the other end.

With just under 2:00 left we trailed by five and were inbounding under our own basket, L throwing the ball in. The first attempt got blown up, as L missed an open cutter then tried to force it to our tallest girl inside. A loose ball went off the defense and we got another chance. This time L hit our center, a sophomore from St P’s, and T hit the shot. Down three.

After forcing a five-second call on defense, we had a possession that was truly crazy. It was a wild swing of bad passes, near steals, and a couple terrible shots with offensive rebounds sprinkled in. Eventually L got the ball on the baseline with a lane to the hoop. She drove, flipped it up-and-in, and the margin was down to one with under 30 seconds left.

On the next BPHS possession we got a steal and seemed to have an open layup to take the lead. Only our girl got completely blown up by three defenders. The referee indicated that one of the girls got all ball, which she probably did, but ignored the other two who absolutely wiped our girl out.

I started laughing. I remember well from my sports writing years that refs in JV games do everything they can to get those games over shortly after 7:00 so the varsity girls can have 20 minutes of warmups and then start right at 7:30, even if that means swallowing their whistles on close plays. It was already after 7:10 and the refs knew their job was to avoid overtime.

So CHS is inbounding under our own basket again. We called a timeout and the varsity coach jumped into the huddle to draw something up. It ended up being the same play we had run the last two attempts, only with a couple girls flipped to new spots. L found her old Panther pal again, T hit the contested shot, and we were up one with :07 left. Pandemonium on our side!

After a timeout, BPHS got a relatively open look near the rim by their strongest player. She had to rush her shot, it didn’t hit any rim, and our girls ran around screaming like they had won City when the buzzer sounded.

An exciting and entertaining if not aesthetically pleasing game.

That layup was L’s only basket of the game, going 1–5 from the floor. She also had 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 2 turnovers, that one block, and one foul. I wasn’t tracking minutes but she played around 20 minutes of the 24-minute game. She, like all of her teammates, struggled on offense. She looked nervous early and never seemed to get comfortable. But her defense was really solid. I’ll get more into that in a minute.

After she came back from the locker room and found us she said she played terrible, “I had so many turnovers!” To be fair she made some bad passes that got knocked around before we re-gained possession that didn’t count as official turnovers. But I pointed out she also had three assists and played solid defense. When we got home I told her how good her defense was and she said “That’s the best defense I’ve ever played.” Again, more on that in just a sec. She also told us how nervous she was when the game started, which is unusual for her.

The varsity game was also very entertaining. CHS got up 11 early, but BPHS steadily clawed back into it. The Irish led by one at halftime, trailed by one going into the fourth, and were down by three midway through the quarter. We went on a 10–0 run to take the lead and ended up winning by eight. Our best player, a junior shooting guard, had 24 points. When I told L that this morning she said, “You see what I have to guard every day in practice? She is so good.” I think having to try to slow J down in practice has tightened up L’s defensive game. J also, apparently, guards the hell out of L, so maybe once her nerves calm down and the team is running better team offense, that will provide some benefits in L’s game, too.

Game one in the books, both JV and varsity are 1–0. Not a great performance by L, but she played her best in the game’s biggest minutes. It wasn’t bad for her first high school game.

We have another road game on Thursday, but I will be in Florida that night so no breakdown for it. The girls have a week off before their third game, so your next update will come Thanksgiving week. I promise they won’t all be this long. Unless the games are good enough to warrant 1000-plus words, of course!