Sadie's Basketball

Sadie has loved basketball and was so excited waiting for the season to start.  They had fun last year and were cute to watch, but this year they have really come along.  Their team is really good!  

The first season was with the City of Idaho Falls.  It was fun when they got to play against her friend Sydney, daughter of my good friend Ingrid.

Then they played in the City of Iona league.  We like this league.  I really don't think they lost a game, even when we played all boy teams.  It was funny to watch the surprise when players and parents would realize how good we were, an all girls team.  There was this one boys team that may have scored more points than us, but I don't count that game because they were the biggest cheaters.  I couldn't even handle it.  The broke every single rule.  They guarded the wrong people, they stole the ball, they double dribbled constantly.  The only thing they could do is shoot.  And their coaches did nothing to teach them or to try to get them to do what they were supposed to.  Instead they defended their actions.  I need to write an email to the league and complain about that team.

Kristie and Meridyn did a great job coaching.  Partway through the season they started doing screens.  The girls loved it!  They didn't do them that often though, because the other teams just weren't giving us enough competition to really do them.  Last year we had a couple really good shooters (Brynlee and Elyn) and everyone else did okay.  They've always been pretty focused and on track (at this age there are often a lot that are not).  But by the end of this season, they ALL had really good ball-handling skills, they all made shots nearly every game.  Sadie certainly started making more shots.  She is pretty great at rebounds.  She seems to know where the ball will end up and just ducks under people to get to it.  We are often surprised to see her show up where the ball is.  

We really hope that she will play with this team for a long time.  They work well together and they all seem to enjoy it a lot!  She prefers basketball to all other sports (which is funny to me since she's kind of a shorty.)

 I brought my camera to one game, and I really loved the pictures that I got!  Here's Sadie guarding the tall guy.

 Plaing point guard

 Team huddle

 Jump shot

 Tongue out means total concentration as she drives to the basket.

 She almost made it to the rebound but made the wise choice to let these guys duke it out instead.  These girls are fierce!

 And my favorite, the (discreet) high-fives to her team after they made a shot.  That little grin kills me.