Patience is a virtue, yes indeed. In the afternoon, I took another close look at the lineup for tonight's game at the St. Francis Varsity Summer League. It looked dangerously sad. Of all our guys in 17U, so many were busy with other things. Football practice (spring ball). Finals week. Injury.
In fact, we had only four guys set to play. I didn't know if the league would allow our middle-school (or sixth-grade) players to play. That's the league's decision, not mine.
But thank God, we had nine in uniform tonight. I can't say that surprised me. But I know I wasn't expecting that big a turnout with so much going on for our guys. The best thing was seeing everybody mesh together, playing fast, smart basketball, hitting open threes, passing to cutting teammates for layups. Playing tough defense end to end (94 feet). Rebounding. Even our younger, smaller guys like Jared were in there battling and plucking rebounds on the offensive glass.
Tonight's lineup: Isaiah Visoria, Haka Johnson, Jerry Betiru, Tone Lauvao, Sifo Lauvao, Kyle Moraga, Jared Elwin, Chris Afe, Joshua de Jesus. We needed every one of our guys tonight. Everyone ran hard, hustled on defense and got their rest time. That's what having 9 players does.
The Patriots are a young team with more height than they usually have. Our advantage was that they haven't had as much experience together as a team has our guys do, but it's not that simple either. We had a mix of 17U and 13U, and some these guys had never played with each other before. But they know the system and many of our Thunder thrive in it. Everybody brings something different to the table. It was sweet to watch.
Things get tougher from here, of course. But it's a nice start on a day when I was worried about a possible forfeit. Now it's obvious that we have a chance to compete really well in this league.
Mahalo to Coach Loto for taking Jerry home. Mahalo to Coach Roy for bringing and taking Chris and Josh to the game and back home.
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