Winter Mission Trip

Here's a little bit of what the boys have been doing down in Mission, TX. They finish up today and come home tomorrow.

Aaron helped put siding on a house.

Nathan helped replace a roof.

Tournament Game 3: Not a Pretty Performance

And we thought the second game was bad! As a team, we committed 42 turnovers. Every single player that made it from the bench to the floor committed at least 1. At the end of the half, we were down by 20. At least we played more respectably in the 2nd half, finishing with a 57-43 loss.

Aaron and Nathan worked hard, as usual, having their share of mistakes. Aaron ended the evening with 7 points (2 of 5 from the free throw line), 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals. Nathan managed 5 points (1 of 2 free throws), 3 rebounds and 2 assists.

We get a break now until after Christmas (at least for games!) and I'm so glad we get a few warm-up games before district play begins. Hopefully we can get it together, because the fact of the matter is that this team could be good. Not great. But definitely good. And coming off two seasons of zero district wins, that is has the potential to be huge. If they can find the basket and quit turning the ball over, that is!

Second Tournament Game

Not such a good day today. We were dismal in our shooting percentage, both from the field and from the free throw line. Aaron ended with 2 points, Nathan with 6. Aaron managed 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals. Not up to what his numbers have been.

Nathan pulled down 3 rebounds, had 2 assists and 1 steal.

As a team we had a huge number of turnovers, which didn't help, either, although Aaron only gave up 1--his best game yet in that area! We'll see how it goes tomorrow. A win gives us 3rd place. A loss? Well, we won't think about that possibility right now!

Wrapping Up Aaron's Football Career

Our annual fall sports awards banquet was last night, the final wrap up of Aaron's football career. To be honest, we weren't expecting anything in the way of awards. He did well this season, but not necessarily outstanding. But we were all pleasantly surprised. Here's a rundown of Aaron's final football awards:

Team: Christian Character award

District: 2nd team kicker, 1st team cornerback

State: honorable mention cornerback, academic all-state

The state honors were huge, especially the academic one. It requires a junior or senior to have received a first team all-district award and to have at least a 90 average in school. Aaron works so hard in his classes but always feels he doesn't quite measure up. Thankfully his elective classes brought up his average enough to qualify for this honor. It is such an accomplishment for him! But beyond the hardware around his neck, we so appreciated the things said about his character and his leadership by the coaches. It was a lovely end to his career in a sport that was never his first love but that he worked to do well. We are so proud of him!

Tournament Game 1: Double-Double

We played our first of three games in a tournament today and won, 54-33. We even did it without one of our best players. But the most significant thing about this game for our family was that Aaron got his first ever double-double. 11 points, 14 rebounds. He was our high scorer and ended with 6 steals and 5 assists, too. (We won't talk about his number of turnovers!)

Nathan played quite well also, finishing with 9 points, 2 rebounds, 5 assists and a steal.

Tomorrow we play a small public school, one that beat us soundly last year. But they graduated 6 basketball seniors, so maybe it will be a real game. We shall see!

On the Winning End

For the past three seasons, our basketball team has often been on the losing end of a rout. Last night, we got to be on the winning end. The final score: 72-36. I'm not sure we scored even close to 70 points in a game last year!

The boys all played well. Aaron and Nathan didn't score much, but Aaron had 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 4 steals and 5 points (1 of 2 from the free throw line). Nathan had 8 points (including a 3-pointer and 1 of 2 free throws), 5 rebounds, 5 assists and a steal.

Tournament play this weekend will be interesting. I'm expecting them to at least compete with teams that slaughtered us last year, but we shall see. At least it is exciting!

A Decisive Win

Our boys played their first home game tonight and came away with their second win of the season. This was a decisive 56-39 win. And this was against a respectable team. They just played basketball like they knew how to play!

Aaron was awesome. He led the scoring with 21 points, was second in rebounding with 8 boards, had 3 assists, and 1 steal. He was 6 of 8 from the free throw line.

Nathan didn't do too badly, either. He played all but a couple of minutes of the game, scored 3 points--all from the free throw line, grabbed 5 rebounds, made 2 assists and came up with 2 steals.

I sure hope this is an indication of things to come. If so, it should be a fun season!