It's sometimes difficult to go from the quiet and relaxation of vacation back to "full swing" of essentially living on campus and coaching/teaching with purpose. Our return to KL was on Saturday morning and on Sunday at 9:40 am, Laurence was walking to school to open the gym for the first practice of 2011. On the other end, waiting outside the gym, was the team he has been happily coaching this year with Scott. Laurence loves coaching, of course, and over the years has been fortunate to coach some great girls.
This year was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Seven of the 14 girls on the roster are ninth graders. Three are 10th graders. There are no juniors. But somehow, along the way, this team worked out to be quite a talented bunch of girls. As with any team there comes a "click" moment, when the players "get it" and suddenly they stop playing individual basketball and working much more like an organized group. This happened just before the December break for these girls.... and so when January 9th came along it was back to the gym for the final dash to the IASAS tournament finish line. Running, running, running. Oh, and some shooting and a few plays scattered here and there.
The almost final (IASAS is this coming weekend) was a superior performance at the ISKL invitational cup this past weekend. The girls went undefeated and currently stand at 9 wins in their last 10 games, including a stretch of 7 consecutive wins. The girls can't believe it. Laurence can't believe it. But is sure is nice!
Obviously everyone is delighted. The girls who have been around for more than this year have never experienced success like this and it only gives them something to dream about when we head to Manila on Wednesday. Our seniors have never won a game at IASAS in their career, but we also haven't had such a good team during their tenure here. This team seems destined for a little more, even if it is a rebuilding year. :-)
Let's see what IASAS has in store for us. We dream, we hope, we run.
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