Welcome to the 7th grade City Suburban Catholic Conference Championship Game. Would our boys be able to repeat as champions? I’d love to build up some suspense in this one. I’d love to tell you we squeaked out a victory, like last year’s 4 point win. I’d love to tell you it was a hard-fought battle. Fact of the matter is: It was a bloodbath.
This team does a lot of slaughtering throughout the year. They get up by so many points, they can’t press… not like they do anyways. They’re not supposed to win by so many points, so they pump the brakes, bring in the kids that are called up to play with our boys, the 6th or 5th graders. They practice “Princeton”, where they run the 3 man weave at the top of the key, dribbling around, handing the ball from kid to kid for about a minute, before running their play to score. To say it doesn’t get boring at times would be a lie; ho hum, here we go again. Yet, I catch myself… winning never gets boring; winning is fun. Throughout life, you will be on the other side… losing… your fair share of times, whether in your personal life, professional career, coaching your kid’s team, or supporting your favorite sports teams. THIS is much better; don’t take it for granted. Enjoy every moment of this. I do; I hope my son and his team do too.
They do sometimes start off slowly, like the previous day in the semifinals. Sometimes, it takes them a minute before they put their foot on the gas; today wasn’t one of those games. They snuffed them from the start; the game was over after one quarter. I didn’t mind one bit. We talked about this. I told my son, don’t mess around; get them right out of the gate. Don’t give them any hope. You know, when underdogs hang around, stay within striking distance, start to see a couple shots fall… you never know! There are many great underdog stories out there, but not today; we had to put this dog down immediately.
We didn’t have quite as much family in the house for this one, but the crowd was larger than the semis. The school really does a good job of coming out to support. With the 8th graders slated to play in their championship game right after ours, there were a lot of people in the house. The 7th graders gave them a lot to cheer about; I’m sure many of them jumped on their phones, went back to their sidebar conversations after a bit though… haha. It was pretty evident early on. Our opponent had one good kid; how they beat the other team to get to the finals is beyond me. When a team only has one good player, they are especially screwed against our boys. Defense is one of the trademarks of this team. Everyone of them plays it tough, including our one “stopper”. There have been multiple examples throughout the year when a kid comes in feeling pretty confident, and after they see our stopper, our defense, they leave with a reality check. Hope this kid takes the feedback he received on this afternoon constructively…
When the final whistle blew, the scoreboard read 51-17. Back to back champs! 3 straight undefeated seasons! I couldn’t be more proud of my son and his team; they are truly a great team. Only one year remains, the big, last year of grammar school where we will face many challenges, where we will meet our match; everyone will meet their match eventually, right? I look forward to all the challenges that lie ahead, but for now… it’s time to celebrate another outstanding season for the boys. Congrats guys! You did it again.
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