(Update: today's scores - Thunder 13U 27, Owls 11. Crush 52, Thunder 15U 49.)
Pretty good day for the young guns. 13U (Ryan, Walter, Tanielu, Chris, Kyle, Kodee, Bill) beat the Owls by about 20. I tried to save their legs for the 15U game that followed immediately, especially with Kyle injured. He hurt his ankle on the first play of the first game.
Today's 15U were: Brent, Sifo, Kyle, Tanielu, Chris, Galia (their cousin), Bill. That was it. I spent half an hour before the game looking for Jerson, and he told me he had a leg injury from playing football. I was concerned for the past week that we wouldn't have enough (and would have to forfeit), but thanks to Bill and Galia, we actually had two subs. Two more players than last week in 15U.
We were close, back and forth, with the Crush until the third quarter. We only have five guys, basically, with Bill (tired out) and Chris/Tani's cousin on the bench. Their cousin is a good athlete, just learning the game. We fell behind by about 10 points, all on little mistakes. Not getting good position on low-post defense. Not getting up on their 3-point shooters soon enough. Turning the ball over on silly passes. Taking off-balance shots in traffic.
All the mistakes are correctible. But we miss Sierra (clinic) and Micah (baseball) a lot. Crush went to a 2-3 zone after the first quarter and we were missing that 3-point shooter to hit the open shots. But we made a run with our presses and got within 4 points with 2 minutes left. But again, mental errors hurt us. We'd already been warned for delay of game — someone grabbed the basketball after we made a basket — when we got a technical after scoring a layup to cut it to 4. So Crush hit two free throws, got the ball back, scored again and we were down 8 just like that.
We got it back to 4 again off our press, but that was it. Final score was 52-49, our second loss in 15U, both times to Crush. We'll learn from it, I hope. Our only guy close to being 15 years old was Brent, who played a good game. But all of us made good plays and all of us made some mistakes. I know everybody was tired in the second half, but I really think now that if we'd gone to Power 10 and 41 earlier, we would've won.
Not a guarantee, but Crush's pressbreaker was not as good as I expected and we really had them on the ropes in those last couple of minutes.
All in all, it was fun to watch most of the time. Learn, advance forward. We're still one of the youngest teams in 15U, and our 13U actually has only one 13-year-old now (Bill). So keep working hard, play smart and let your actions do all of your talking. I don't want to hear ever again from the officials and league commissioner that any of our guys are commenting about calls.
If we play smart, we don't need to get help from anybody else. But we didn't play smart against the Crush on many plays, and they earned the win.
I'm loading up the game videos now. Some of the 13U are at Makiki Park playing and practicing on their own. Kyle will get some therapy for his ankle. I'll be at the park after I get some water and ice for the new cooler.
Could've been better, but the hustle was worthy. Let's go back to playing smart all the time. Learn from our mistakes, work on our weak spots. Most of all, I'd love to see our rosters at 8-9 players for each team so we can go back to pressing and running all day and night.
And finally: Special thanks to the Ogoshi ohana for bringing water and cookies to our 17U game on Saturday. And mahalo to Glenn Ogoso, Mark Berthold and Isaiah Visoria for shooting video this weekend. Also, thanks to Coach Loto and Coach Roy for providing transportation for the boys. Mahalo!
