Hoopla redux

Well, Hoopla was everything it was stacked up to be last Saturday. Four games, a packed house, free food, entertainment for the kids, and so on. We raised $1537 for the Coaches vs. Cancer effort, something that comes completely from free-will donations in lieu of admission charged at the gate. That's a cause that I feel strongly about and I will continue to support it as long as I am in a position to do so.

The game? We started off a bit sluggishly, trailing at one point 16-15 in the first half. The turnaround didn't feel very abrupt, but by halftime we had outscored Lakewood Park 46-6. For the first time, I think the girls all felt comfortable in the role they played and they were simply terrific. I tried to manage playing time and quarters as well as I could, and the starters were done as the buzzer sounded to end the third quarter. In the interim, they put on a show for the standing-room-only crowd and when a pair of free throws pushed our total to 101 points for the night, the crowd went nuts. We may never do it again, but we will have opportunities if we continue to play hard and play together. That's all I asked the girls to do, and they responded.

Tonight, New Haven comes to Canterbury. They will be physical and well-coached, so we need to be prepared to play. We had a long, hard practice last night in an effort to shore up our conditioning. I hope the girls feel like tonight is an easier experience than they had last night. Playing full-court non-stop against a decent group of boys was a challenge that New Haven will probably not present. It may be unconventional, but it helps us get better and that's our primary goal every night in practice.

The snow is beginning to fall outside - it's hard to remember that we are already approaching mid-January. I'm not complaining though - I hope the rest of the winter will be as mild as we've experienced so far. It's tough enough to consider playing 8 games in the next 17 days. We don't need to start worrying about cancellations and makeup games. All we can do is play; the rest of that stuff is out of our control.