We are number two. Woohoo!
We seem to be saying this quite a bit lately. (And I don’t mean that in a potty mouth way. I feel I have to clarify for those people who still think like a 12-year-old boy. In this case number two means second place. That is all. Bunch of 12-year-olds.) Mandy’s soccer team started off the fall season coming in second in their league. Joe’s basketball team just earned second place in their league. Mandy’s club volleyball team has come in second in two of their tournaments. And just recently the school basketball team that both kids played on came in second in their division.
So we have been number two quite a bit this year. I suppose some people would be bothered by not being first, but we actually don’t mind. I know, I know, Mandy’s friend Megan would say that second place is just the first loser. (She doesn’t take after her father at all. Ha.)
But we like second place. True, there is somebody better than you, but at least you are not last. For example, Joe’s basketball team started the season 1 and 4. It was no fun to be on the bottom and lose all those games. But the boys battled back and worked their way into the second place spot in their 6th grade division of Spirit basketball. The last game of the season they beat a team by more than 20 points; this same team beat them by four points in the beginning of the season.
Mandy’s club volleyball team played in two elite Gold tournaments and didn’t win a match. However, they played in two other tournaments and came in second. The last tournament they played in, they won the consolation round. Mandy played fantastic. She only missed one serve the whole day and had tons of great hits. But, well, I have a lot of issues. (Although I don’t have any issues with any specific players.) I am keeping my mouth shut on this one. I will say, however, I am confused why the team takes out its two best passers when they get to the back row just because they are middle hitters. But I don’t evidently understand volleyball. Sooooo, moving on.
We were disappointed that Mandy’s fall soccer team came in second in the Spirit league for the 13-15 year olds. We sure thought they had first place locked up. But that is the way sports go. Oh well. Spring soccer starts in a week or two and we are returning with a lot of the same players. Should be another awesome season. I just hope Mandy doesn’t get any yellow cards. She has spent her basketball season perfecting her shoulder shove, knocking other players to the ground. I will stay on the sideline with my mouth shut and my fingers crossed. If it really gets bad, I’ll just watch from my car. I’m good at that. I spent most of two seasons watching from my car when they tried her as goalie. Mandy is NOT a goalie. Yikes.
I must say that we were pretty thrilled that the kids’ school basketball team came in second in their division during the recent school tournament. It is a NELHS tournament, hosted by the WELS Lutheran high school in Waco. A bunch of schools in Nebraska, and one from Kansas, play in either the A pool or the B pool in a two-day tournament.
The bigger schools have more than one team in the tournament. For example, one team might contain their eighth graders, another team has their seventh graders, and another team might have fifth and sixth graders. Their bigger teams usually play in the A pool. Their smaller teams play in the B pool, with the little schools, like our school.
The smaller schools generally only have enough players for one team. For example, our team had nine players, ranging from third grade through eighth grade. Mandy was our eighth grader. Plus we had three sixth grade boys and the rest of the team was made up of third and fifth graders. Our sixth grade boys are fairly decent basketball players, but we really were blessed with Mandy’s height under the basket to help get those rebounds and to attempt to “post up.” (The entire season Rick, the assistant coach, kept yelling at Mandy to “post up.” She finally yelled back at him during a game to quit yelling that because she doesn’t even know what that means. I’m fairly sure she never did figure out what that meant. Don’t ask me. I don’t know either.)
I should mention that earlier this year our school won the NELHS volleyball tournament in the B division. However, that was because we had our ace in the hole, Miss Club Volleyball Gold team middle hitter. Mandy was doing her spot serving and had a few plays at the net. She didn’t do any hitting, probably because no one else on the team knew how to set the ball. But that’s OK.
Being good at volleyball is one thing. Being good at basketball is an entirely different thing. Being able to jump and being tall is a good thing for both sports. But volleyball is not much of a contact sport. In basketball you have to be willing to box out and sometimes get other people’s sweat on you. This is not something Mandy does well. She often comes to the bench saying “Ewwwww, she dripped on me.” Plus, you have to be willing to get in there and “throw some ‘bows.” This is something that Mandy excels at. We were not aware of this until just this year. I guess all those seasons of pushing and shoving on the soccer field are coming in handy.
Mandy’s ability to push and shove were some of the highlights of the tournament for me. She always wanted to go up against the biggest or tallest player on the other team. She was always backing her butt into them, moving them out of the way so one of our boys could dribble in and take a shot. She also liked to fight for the rebounds. It was hilarious when she was the tallest one out there and she would come down from the basket with the ball, and then just hold it above her head, well out of the reach of everyone else on the court. That was fantastic. You go Big Red.
She did get a little rough, on occasion. For example, during two games she had to sit out a good portion of the third quarter because she had four fouls. Sometimes she couldn’t help but do her volleyball moves. She would try to swat the ball out of the other player’s hands, bringing her hand down in a volleyball hit. Most of the time this resulted in a foul. And one time she used her soccer shove to keep another player from dribbling in to make a layup. Unfortunately she used it on a little girl. When Big Red and the little girl made impact, the little girl ended up on the floor, crying. This was not good. Mandy ended up on the bench with tears in her own eyes. But when Mandy came back in, she ran over to the other bench first, hugged the girl, and told her she was sooooo sorry.
Mandy was quite a character. During most of her games she was cheering and joking on the court. She would always come out screaming at the beginning of the games, and joked with her opponent before the jump ball. A few of the refs got a kick out of the way she would ask what basket she was supposed to shoot at whenever the second half started. She didn’t want a repeat of an early wrong basket episode down in Plymouth. Let’s just say it is a good thing she is not an ace shot.
But while Mandy enjoyed “performing” out on the court, Joe was Mr. Slow and Steady wins the race. He didn’t run until he puked, which is fantastic. He used his keen football “catlike” skills under the basket to seal us a ton of rebounds. He is an awesome rebounder. It’s something he excels at on both of his basketball teams. And he keeps a cool head under the basket, and knows how to throw out his elbows and pivot to ward off the other team, until he can pass the ball to the point guard and jog back down the court.
I’m super proud of Joe. He doesn’t like to shoot the ball, but he forced himself to take some shots, sometimes dribbling into the basket to make them. He got fouled quite a bit and ended up shooting a lot of free throws. Unfortunately this is something he does not excel at. Oh well, there’s always next year for that. He also ended up on the floor quite a bit. The day after the tournament his knees were one solid black and blue bruise. He even wore a hole through his shorts getting “court burn” on one knee. Yikes. He still has the giant scab from that one.
And of course it was mild mannered Joe that caused the biggest drama for our team. At the final championship match, Joe tripped and caught the other guy’s knee with his nose. He laid on the court sobbing, and yelling that it hurts, it hurts. And yet I didn’t run out there. I stayed in my seat. He wasn’t dead, and I am only allowed to come out on the court over Joe’s dead body. (Because it is a fate worse than death for your mom to run out on the court. Once you’re dead, you are evidently beyond caring.) Rick did run over to him, which is OK because Rick is one of the coaches. Rick said he was afraid to pull back Joe’s hands, afraid he would see tons of blood, a smashed nose and broken teeth. But, it was just a bloody nose. We don’t think he broke his nose. It wasn’t crooked, although he said he felt it crack when it happened. Well, chicks dig sports scars, at least that’s what Coach Reed always says.
So the tournament overall was pretty exciting. We were hoping to win a couple games -- at least more than one game. We were expecting to finish somewhere in the middle, probably in the lower half. Let’s just say we weren’t getting our hopes up.
We played three games the first day. We won the first game against Plymouth. Then we played the second Good Shepherd team from Omaha. We didn’t think we would win; the game was pretty close. But somehow we finished the game with a one-point lead. Poor little Michael Hemphill. I think Mandy hacked him under the basket on several occasions. But yet he hugged her after the game, so it must not have been too painful. The third game of the day we knew we couldn’t win. Waco beat us by about 15 or 16 points earlier in the season, and we were expecting they would really kill us, considering it was our third day of the game and we really only had five or six kids that would play. Waco beat us by about 15 again. But we figure we were lucky. At least they didn’t beat us about 70-something to 4, like they did another team earlier in the season. Painful.
The next day I think we started as the third cede. We had to play Mt. Olive from Overland Park, KS. We looked terrible. They were ahead by 12 points in the third quarter and Mandy had four fouls. Things were dismal. Then somehow it turned around. Somehow we got a few steals and lay ups and started to catch up. Soon we were within a few points and it was close to the end of the fourth quarter. Then Joe put in a shot that put us up by one point. There were thirty seconds left and we had the ball. Joe and Braden just kept possession of the ball and passed it back and forth. Before the other team could steal or foul, the game was over and we won. We couldn’t believe it. And Mandy didn’t foul out. Miracles never cease. There was a thunderous amount of screaming and jumping and hollering. But enough about the moms, the kids were pretty happy too.
We played the second cede next, a Central Lutheran team from the Norfolk area. We didn’t think we could win, but we took the lead and kept it the whole game. In fact, we pressed the other team. It was incredible. Somehow we were going to the championship game. Of course it was against Waco again. Of course we knew we couldn’t win. But at least we knew we were getting a trophy. It was such an incredible accomplishment that it didn’t matter.
So we played Waco – and we got killed. We stayed within one point the first quarter. In fact we were ahead by a point every once and a while. We made Waco’s Coach Stern so concerned he had to actually take his jacket off. But then we lost momentum. I’m pretty sure our five starters were completely out of gas. Then Joe got injured and we kind of just folded. Mandy went the majority of the game without fouling. That was miraculous. However she had a big foul late in the game and I overheard her ask her dad if she could start using her fouls now. I noticed soon after she sat on the bench and the third graders went in. Evidently Rick wasn’t taking any chances.
Sure we got beat in the championship game, but the tournament overall was fantastic. Two trophies in one year. Wow. I think that is unheard of in all the years my kids have been at the school. Mandy and Joe are pretty proud they were able to earn two trophies for St. Marks. (Just don’t be expecting any trophies for track.) True, the second trophy is a lot smaller than the first. But it’s still exciting.
Yep, we’re excited about coming in second. It’s not a bad place to be. We’ve seen last place before. It is a bad place to be.
This weekend will be full of more sports. Joe has a MIT basketball tournament with his Spirit basketball team. Mandy is filling in as a sub for a Magic volleyball 17-year-old team on Sunday because it is short a couple players. Two more chances to come in number two? Who knows? One thing is for sure. Silver is our color.
Our team intro at NELHS championship game
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