Regional Tournament

I must say I had no idea what awaited me and this team a week ago as we prepared to leave for our Minneapolis trip. But here we are without Lyds, a banged and sewed up Jenna, and a 4th seed tournament draw that seemed impossible at best, 3rd place at worst.

But the girls responded to the challenge Thursday night against Grace like they have all year, with a quiet confidence and focus. If you have read any of these posts in the past, you know how slowly we typically start. I told Lyds just before the tip that the only thing we couldn't really afford was a slow start. Honestly, this was our worst of the year. We went nearly 6:30 minutes without scoring, but our defense kept us in it. Tiff hit a few timely 3-pointers to keep us in reach, and we went to the locker room at half down 24-20.

We played fairly well to start the 2nd, but could never get the lead. Grace also changed to a diamond and one defense on Tiff, so we had to be creative. Ellie and Jenna developed a rythym, and Rebekah controlled the boards. Brooke VanLaanen (Van) started and defended their outside shooter. She played a great 30 minutes of basketball, limiting their scorer to 6 points, while scoring 6 herself. She also grabbed 5 rebounds and made 6 steals. We took our first lead of the game with 6:30 left, leading 42-41. We limited them to 3 points the remainder of the game, and pulled away the last few minutes. Tiff led us with 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 steals, 0 turnovers. Jenna scored 15 and grabbed 7 rebounds. Ellie played one of her best games in her two years and tallied 11 points. But the bigger line for her was only 2 turnovers in the game. Rebekah grabbed a game high 11 rebounds.

As speechless as I was after our devestating Faith loss, I was almost as speechless after this game. I am so proud of these girls. They have surpassed expectations and overcome adversity. They are young ladies of character and have been a rebuke to me. I'm definitely blessed to serve with them! This puts us in the semi finals on Friday against Maranatha. That will be very difficult, but we will do our best.