Xander's basketball team the Celtics came into the end-of-season tournament with a pretty average record; they won some, they lost some. Due to this they were a low seed and had two games to play on Saturday instead of just one like the higher seeded teams. Xander's coach was out of town so the coach's wife, along with some help from David, coached the team.
Go Celtics!
Xander took a few shots, unfortunately not making any of them...
but successfully grabbed a few rebounds.
Hangin' out on the bench with his dad.
Our guys put up a good fight and were able to pull off the victory! With the morning win they were headed to an afternoon game against one of the top seeded teams. As fate would have it Xander's soccer team was to play in a playoff game at exactly the same time. I told Xander that his soccer team needed him more and that because his basketball team was going up against one of the toughest teams in the league they would most likely lose. The decision was made that Xander would go to his soccer game but by the look on his face in this picture right after the basketball game, he was NOT happy about missing the afternoon basketball game.
Later that evening we received an email from the coach's wife letting us know that Xander's basketball team had won and the next playoff game was Wednesday night. I was absolutely blown away! I knew this other team they had played and knew how competitive the coach is and had felt certain that our boys would lose and lose badly just as they had to this team earlier in the season. Well, that's why you play the game - you just never know what will happen on any given day!
Jump ahead to Wednesday night. We played against another very tough team that had beat us by over 20 points during the regular season.
The before -the-game pep talk!
Our boys played tough but not quite tough enough in the first half...we ended up down by over 10 points going into the second half. But something woke them up in that second half and they came out and played some great basketball.
They were able to rally in the fourth and move ahead by 5 points in the last few minutes of the game, pulling out the victory that now placed them in the championship game on Saturday.
The cheers from the bench as the buzzer went off!
Who would have thought that this average little team would make it to the big game?
The fans at the championship game! For Xander this was the second year in a row and he was beyond excited. The team we were playing had gone undefeated during the season so we knew this would be a tough game.
At half time we were up by 9 points and were feeling good. Xander had even thrown up a 3-point shot that had me cringing as he launched it...and then it swished right in! I was so amazed and happily joined all the other parents as we cheered loudly for my sweet boy that had only made 2 other baskets all season!
The second half turned out to be quite rough for us as we only scored one basket and allowed the other team to come back and claim the win. First and second place both receive a trophy, thank goodness! Xander was upset about the loss but excited that his team had finished out the season strong.
Team picture: (back row) Thomas, Tyson, Tyler, Matthew; (front) Cameron, Xander, Cameron, Zach, and Coach Brad. We were missing Elijah.
Thank goodness Xander ended up having another fabulous coach!
Yay to another fun basketball season!
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