Well, it wasn't pretty, but the job got done. Jayson's basketball team, the "Lil' Dawgs" were scheduled to play 3 games against three different teams from around Utah in the June 15-17, 11 and under tournament to decide who would play whom in the final medal bracket. It started out in a manner that was not exactly encouraging, yet neither was it discouraging. The first team we played, "Young Guns", was in matching custom uniforms and had age, height, and experience on their side. After three quarters of hanging tough, the Dawgs fell apart, and ended up losing by 8 when the final buzzer sounded. Not bad...but we really showed our lack of practice and experience. After all, they went into this with only six 1-hour practices under their belts, so we were okay with the outcome of the game.
Fast forward to Day 2. We get to the gym early to work on some plays and shooting, and 30 minutes before tip-off, in walks a team that HAD to be lost. "Some Serious Hoops" was HUGE....they MUST be in the junior-high-age tournament! Their fancy uniforms and monogrammed Nike shoes were only a taste of what we were hoping to avoid....but sadly, they WERE the team we were scheduled to face next, and upon chatting with one of the moms from the other team, I found out that every member on the team was 11 years old, and they had been playing together competitively for 2+ years. It was a tough game, but the boys never gave up. The "SSH" team did a substitution in the second half that was hilarious! While Jayson was on the floor, they sent in the little brother of one of the players to match up with Jayson for about 10 minutes. He was 6, and more than a head shorter than even Jayson, who is not the tallest kid on the floor himself. He looked at me when the kid came over to defend him, and the look on his face was "What am I supposed to do with THIS?" The boy had very little idea of what was going on, but he was sure fun to watch! Jayson played the least amount of time of anyone on our team(about 5-7 min. a game), and he never scored a point, but then again, he never committed a foul, either....of which he was quite proud, because in league play, he usually gets called for more than his fair share of them. He was wide open for most of the time that he was matched up with this young man, but he never got the ball passed to him, so he didn't get a shot off. We ended up losing that game by 21 points. OUCH!
Later that day, we faced our final challenge before the medal round. Now, THIS team wasn't so intimidating.....only one giant player, no fancy uniforms, no matching anything....but as we found out, they could have been the poster-team for the saying :"Don't Judge a Book by It's Cover". They were MUCH better than we thought. We only lost this game by 5, but by this time, we had learned a few things, and the team was playing much better. Still, it is discouraging to not win a single game. We were down, but not out...one more game to go, and this was for the bronze medal.
Bronze Medal Round
In our final match-up of the tournament, we again played the "Young Guns" team, whose only win had been against us. The Dawgs were determined to leave it all on the court and played a wonderful game. Jayson still hadn't scored in the tournament, and things didn't look too good for a score in this game, as the coach chose to go with the more experienced and bigger players in an effort to gain a win. When Jayson did get a few minutes to play, he was largely ignored offensively, but when he was fouled while rebounding a missed shot, and the opponent was in the penalty, things looked up. Jayson went to the line for a 1 and 1 foul shot opportunity. We were pretty confident that he would finally get a point, as he is quite a good foul shooter. When he missed, my heart simply broke for him. In the end, we pulled off a win by 11 points and were awarded the bronze medal for a spectacular effort by the team.
All in all, it was a great learning opportunity. Next year should be better, as we will get all of the team members back except for 1. Grandma and Grandpa Gibb made the trip down to watch Jayson play, and that meant the world to both of us...thanks for being there!!!
