Future Fillies Take Titles

Sorry I am so late to the party but my wife clued me in a day or two ago that both the Major and Junior Shallowater Little Dribblers girls teams won the championship tournaments recently.

The Majors won straight out, while the Juniors took the hard road and won the championship coming back from the loser’s bracket!

How about that!  Roundball is just the thing in Shallowater.

What Do You Do When There’s No Baseball?

Heh.

For the first time since Justin was 5 we are not playing any baseball in June (well, past June 2 anyway).  The JR team of Shane’s finished their season June 2, and Justin’s high school games are over with no Crows ball this year.  I seriously don’t know what to do with myself.  If I’m not careful, I’ll end up having to paint and clean and put up window blinds and tend to yards and flowers….good grief!!!  Or maybe I’ll spend time rebuilding the fence the two dogs seem intent on destroying, or repairing the holes in the yard the two dogs have created.  Or I could finally put a cap on the chimney.  Or I could finally get rid of the useless planter in the back yard and lay down pavers in that corner.  Or I could finally put up the steps to the deck I’ve had planned for about a dozen years now.  There’s always the bathroom at Dad’s which I’ve been planning to redo for months.  Come to think of it, I have plenty to do without baseball, and just THINKING of it is making me tired. 

Shane has a few AAU basketball tournaments in the next few weeks, but they better not interfere with vacation plans.  We didn’t take one at all last year, and have not taken one outside of late July/early August in years.  I’m ready to take a JUNE vacation!

Titans Win 2.5 Place

What is 2.5 place?  Well, it’s what you get in a double elimination basketball tourny when your team has locked up at least third and the teams currently vying for 1st and 2nd get thrown out of the tournment for fighting.  Well, not the teams so much as the coaches.  Yep, the coaches.

{And they think I’m bad at baseball games….that will all be coming to an end shortly anyway, it’s time for me to retire.}

So at the tournament the only team remaining in the double elimination field and the team that had been most recently eliminated met for the “championship”, and the team that was eliminated won.

It was about the best the tounament could do short of just cancelling all the Sunday games and awarding places, and the team that beat the Titans beat them twice and lost to them once, so they essentially won a short series 2-1.  Seems reasonable under the circumstances.

So the Titans won third but got to play for first and ended up with second after losing to the team they eliminated in the consolation side of the bracket.

Clear? 

Baseball Trip Turned Basketball

Our high school team had a baseball tournament scheduled for Salado the weekend of 3/13-3/14.  We’d already made hotel arrangements and taken days off from work, only to have the weather system that moved through Texas that weekend rain out the entire affair the day we were leaving for that trip.

To try to make the best of a bad situation, we kept our Salado rooms and travel plans intact and just turned this into a trip to the state basketball tournament to watch our Mustangs play.  That early morning ride into Austin down I-35 is no fun.  Shane didn’t beleive me when I told him before we got to the Drum we’d come to a complete stop on the interstate with 4-5 lanes of traffic completely stopped with us.  Sure enough, I was right.  But we’d left way early and made it with no trouble.  We kind of wanted to see Ponder play, which we did for almost all their semi-final game.  Wow, one of the best AA basketball teams I’ve seen in a while.  They could have humiliated Santa Rosa had they wanted to.

Our semi-final was not so great.  Lots of turnovers against a team I didn’t think was all that good.  New Waverly gave Ponder a good game until the closing minutes though so maybe they were a lot better than I thought.  Our team just seemed a step off all game long.  Passes a foot or two out of the lane, just enough off to throw the receiver off and sometimes having to chase the ball to the boundary and try to make  a save.  NW got all of those, plus every lazy pass that hung in the air too long.  They were athletic, I’ll give them that.  And they knew they could not shoot outside to save their lives, so they didn’t even try.  They’d break us down one on one and take it to the front of the rim.  We tried zone later, but it didn’t help enough.  I’m sure proud of those boys reaching state again.

That left us to drive home Friday to be here for a Saturday baseball doubleheader that coach had arranged with another team that also lost tournament games to rain that weekend.  Six hours of driving Friday during which I only turned my windshield wipers off about twice, and had to turm them back on within a minute each time.  I’ve never driven that long through constant rain and drizzle.  Good thing we had good wiper blades, though they may be worn out now!  Two six hour drives in two days with one very bad night’s sleep in between, rising early to get into Austin, left me mostly worthless Saturday and Sunday.

Good thing my calendar is freeing up now except for Justin’s baseball….and Shane’s baseball….and Shane’s basketball….

Ah I wouldn’t have it any other way!

State Bound…Again

Our Mustangs are headed to the state basketball tournament again! Huzzah!

I got to see the play Friday night and they jumped out to an early lead against Clyde which never really let Clyde get into the game. We were back in Shallowater Saturday, but listening, and it sounded like they did the same to Eastland, jumping out early and putting the thing away.

Outstanding! Go win state!

This ‘n’ That

T.O. is gone!  Ding, dong the witch is dead!   Huzzah!

Mustangs clip Spearman tonight to head to regionals!  Huzzah, huzzah!

We’ve got a place for our juniors to play baseball, and lots of dads helping!  Huzzah!

Just three of the things that have me enthused tonight.

Girls Regional Finals

Our Fillies dispatched the Wall Hawks this evening 66-48 in the regional semis, which is quite a nice score when you consider that coming into this game Wall was ranked #5 and Shallowater #6. I remained convinced that ranking high school teams anywhere, but especially in Texas, is a fools game.

Their reward?  A matchup in the regional finals with Bowie.  A smallish AA school, the Bowie starting lineup consists of

• 6′ 0″
• 6′ 0″
• 6′ 0″
• 5′ 11″
• 5′ 10″

On the bench they do have a girl 5′ 5″.  She sits with the other 8 subs none of which is less than 5′ 8″.

I’m not kidding.  This is what I’ve been told.

What do they do, put these girls on the rack as kids? 

It will be a challenge for sure.  Bowie is ranked #2 if you go for such things (see above).  Our Fillies are peaking at a good time…maybe they can pull this off and return to the state tournament!

Lady Raider Evening

We used to go to quite a few Lady Raider games, but with both boys involved in sports we sort of fell off that habit the last couple of years.  When I saw that the Aggies were coming to town Wednesday night I suggested to Lisa that it had been too long since we’d been, and the Raiders could use the help against ranked A&M.

So we enjoyed an evening with Lady Raider Nation again.  A much smaller Lady Raider Nation than we used to be in.  Even though the crowd was better than they’ve been averaging it was still pretty sparse.  The crowd was quietly enthusiastic as both teams struggled to score early.  Tech trailed 4-2 before taking a lead.  The lead was never huge, but spread out toward ten then pulled back closer to even over and over.

When Tech came back out after halftime still leading the crowd got more into it.  As they kept that lead, and stretched it to ten a couple of times the crowd got louder and louder.  The Ags would not go away, but they never could get over the hump and the crowd just got louder and louder.  Not loud like the “old days”, but the ones that were there were having some fun. 

The Lady Raiders made it a little interesting between 2 minutes and about 30 seconds, but pulled away with some free throws to win it.  It was fun.  I’m glad we went.  This win along with their previous win against Texas at home will help the Lady Raider’s chances, but they’ve got more work to do.  This is one, though, I think coach would agree they had to have.

But I miss the good old days.  Ah well. 

A Double-Dip for Our Fillies

The Fillies went to Abernathy Tuesday night and lost a heartbreaker to the Lady Lopes.

Then they took a second dose of bad news when they lost the ensuing coin flip for 1st in the district and will now play as the 2nd place team.  Their first game is Monday night in Lamesa at the middle school.  Tip at 6:30.

It’s tough sledding to go into the night the #3 ranked team in the state, and come out of it headed to the playoffs as the second best team in your district.  But Abernathy was ranked #10.  This is one tough district.  And besides, once the playoffs start, nobody will pay much attention to who was 1 or 2 from a district.  The future looks bright for our Fillies – here’s wishing them the very best of luck!

…and One

Our 7th grade Mustangs lost their first game of the year today, the first loss they’ve suffered during their 7th grade year as Mustangs since they went undefeated in football and were undefeated in basketball up to now.  To lose to Tahoka was doubly tough.  That’s a team we’re familiar with and have battled repeatedly in different leagues over the last few years.

It was a great character builder though.  If ever there was a game where some really concrete things could be learned to change the outcome in the future this was it.  The outcome of this game was within our control.  I really do think they’ll figure that out and know how to handle things differently in the future.

Could you ask any more from a loss than that?

And I was proud of how the kids handled the loss.  They didn’t like it, but they didn’t pout.

So, onward we go now with a current record of 8….and One.