Nationals

After recovering from Tyler's North South All Star game in Indianapolis and making the return trip on Saturday, we turned around to make Gabi's AYBT Nationals in Ft. Wayne Sunday through Tuesday.  Saturday and Sundays games were actual pool games...they would determine where each team would fit into which pool according to scores, etc.  Unfortunately the team had lost two on Saturday (Gabi was with us coming back from Indy) and Sunday's games we also lost (two of them).  Monday was a bit different.  This day was basically just practice for teams to get ready for the actual tournament today.  Our team won both games.  The first (against WolfPak) we won by a last second basket by Lizzy (20-18) and the second we won 16-10.  Gabi made one basket in each of the games on Monday.
Today was the actual tournament and we were pooled with four other teams. The first team we would face would be the team we had faced last (won 16-10). This team was very aggressive and liked to foul. In fact, one girl actually shoved Gabi after the whistle. The ref took her aside to tell her it was a "no no" - uh...this is Nationals...you would think the girls know that by now. Anyways, our girls seemed a bit slow and it was close all the way up til the last few minutes. Gabi had three points (free throws) and the score was 15-10. We learned we would face Team Elite (the last team we played on Sunday and got beat by 8 points). That team was good from what we could remember but thought we had a legitimate shot at winning and getting first place in our pool. The girls were very tired but they fought hard. We lost 18-34 and ended up getting second place. Gabi had one basket in the game and was a little heart broken that they didn't get first. We were proud though...she did well. It was a nice tournament and we were very glad to have air conditioned at Spiece Fieldhouse. The girls had fun looking at all the equipment, etc. in this place. It was actually pretty cool comparing feet and hands to some extraordinarily big basketball players. Gabi has come a long way in this league and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Aside from the out of pocket expenses here and there because of traveling, it wasn't too bad. Enjoyed the time with friends and really enjoyed watching our girl :) Very proud today!