photo by Paul Mosely

photo by Paul Mosely

One of my coaches texted me yesterday, “Wow…no practice next week.” My reply, “Weird huh?” For the last four months we have be in full basketball mode. Practices and tournaments and games non-stop. We went undefeated in our league, were league Champions, made it through Districts and Regionals without our point guard and then headed to the State Tournament for the first time in school history.

The random draw going into the State Tournament matched us up against the #1 ranked team in the State for our first game (they eventually won the tournament). “How unlucky,” people lamented when I saw them after the brackets were set for the tournament. I stayed positive. “The good news is that we get #1 right out of the gate and we can knock them off when we are well rested.”  It didn’t happen, we lost. But we came back in our second game and got the win, and then played for 4th or 6th in our final game, were we lost by just one point.

It’s hard to end the season on a loss, but I reminded the girls that we were one of the top teams in State. Placing 6th in State is incredible, especially considering five years earlier we had just three wins. Still, after four intense days of basketball, when the season ended on Saturday with a loss, it hurt. It took some reminding to appreciate what we’d done, we had changed the girl’s basketball program at our high school, made school history and excited the community.

And when I talked to the girls in the locker room after the game, I assured them that the most important thing to remember was the journey they had over the year and the friendships that they’d formed, that they will cherish throughout their lifetime. Truly a season to remember.

WRITING PROMPT #1: Write about a close friendship. What brought you together? 

WRITING PROMPT #2: When Jessie set the basketball down and walked away she…