Recent post from my less than stellar bison blog ... aka ball update:
Hi Bison fans its me again and I think a much needed season update is in order, I apologize for the lack of post but its just been that kind of year.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is excited about the new opportunities that lie ahead in 2010 – our team surely is. We finished our 2009 play with a Christmas exhibition tournament in Montreal, where we were fortunate to play 3 non-conference teams. Reuniting in Montreal after only 8 days apart – which felt like an eternity for a group of people who spend at least 5 hours a day with each other - the excitement and energy set in early. We had a good day of practice leading into our first game – which gave us patience and composure to win in an exciting game against a tough McMaster team. For me this was a fun game as I got to play against girls that I play basketball with growing up and got a chance to be on the court again with them. As much as we are competitive, it was fun to get to see how they have grown as players and although we play on different teams we both share in the joy of finishing our CIS careers in 5 years at one school. Although we started out with an exciting win we let the momentum and energy slip away from us in the second half of the second game and the third game as well - ending with a tournament record of 1 and 3. These were tough loses but we learned a lot about ourselves and what we needed to continue to get better at to be competitive this season. All in all we had a great time in the city, taking in all the sights sounds and shopping haha! So again the privilege of being a bison was not lost on us at all and we enjoyed every minute of it we could.
After a good week of focused, intense and fun practices we started league play again, on the road in BC. This tough swing trip, which sees us sleeping through the night on the bus in between games while traveling from Kamloops to Abbotsford, was a fun team trip. We enjoyed just being on the road free of home distractions and got two much needed wins! Kait stepped up huge in the first game keeping us on the scoreboard in the first half and finishing the game with two clutch free throws. Mubo battled inside the second night and brought a physical presence that everyone feed off of! Needless to say everyone stepped up when we needed them too and it was two total team wins.
We continued league play this past weekend against a tough #4 ranked Regina, we came in confident, knowing that if we battled through the physical play and kept their score below their season average we would give them two good games. Friday night saw us execute the game plan well for all but 3 minutes, which cost us the win down the stretch. On Saturday we played through a rough first half but couldn’t keep the momentum into the second half.
Our second half schedule sees us traveling 4 out of 6 weeks, so we were back on the road, (in this case in the air) off to a balmy BC climate. Although it is quite busy in Vancouver the Olympic buzz can’t help but be felt by everyone. Not to mention the entire city is displaying 2010 spirit in any or everyway possible! So catching on to that excitement we headed into our game against Trinity Western with lots of excitement. The tone was set early with some physical and ‘interesting’ ball handling by both teams – not too mention Kait and myself seemed to be in foul trouble the whole game. What can I say, I don’t think the referees enjoyed me trying to be physical on defence haha. But in the end the younger players set-up and Mubo had another great game to get us a much-needed win!
The second part of this road trip had us matched up against the #1 team in the country – SFU. And like any competitive setting there was no need for forced energy when getting to play against the best. Unfortunately for us we didn’t execute the game plan for 40 minutes and had too many turn overs – and when playing against the best you won’t get the job done.
So now we head into the last three weeks of regular season trying to make a surge for a playoff spot and prove that we belong there. We have what it takes it is just a matter of playing like we can and playing our best basketball when it matters. All in all I’m still having fun, enjoying competing, and loving the privilege of the pressure!
Road Warriors off to Saskatoon this weekend …
Mich
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