Weekend Basketball

We had a crazy-long, exhausting, fun weekend.  We drove to Boise, Idaho, four and a half hours away, and partook in a girls' 8th grade basketball tournament put on by a Catholic church down there.  It was the 50th year that this tournament has taken place, and the second year Glenn has coached a team.

Sadly, we lost our first game, which immediately put us into the "loser's bracket."  It's hard to play a game after traveling such a long way.  The girls were clearly out of sorts and not playing as well as they could've for that first game.  Especially since we played the same team again later in the tournament and beat them handily.

So, when you end up in the loser's bracket, you can still make it into the championship game, but you have to win lots of games to get there.  They played one game Friday, three games Saturday, and three games Sunday.  Seven games over about 40 hours.

After losing that first game, they won the next five!  They made it into the final championship game of the tournament, playing the team that has won this tournament the last couple years.  The championship was our team's third game in five hours and the other team's first game of the day.  Our team played their hearts out, but it was a tough game, and they were clearly pooped.

They still walked away with a beautiful 2nd place trophy.  The coach of the other team told Glenn after the game what a great team he had.  One of the tournament organizers told him that they've never had a team scramble all the way back out of the loser's bracket back into the championship.  (Ellea is in the front row on the right and Glenn and Nicole are second and third from the right in the back.)  It was a great experience, but man were we all tired!  Even those of us who did nothing but sit on the sidelines and cheer!