Season Starts....

The season kicked off this weekend with a HUGE double header for us. First game was on Saturday against the Knox Raiders, the defending champs of the league, on a night when they were unveiling and hanging their championship banner.  Second game of the weekend was against Brisbane, the team that had the best record from last season and finished 2nd in the league. So needless to say we had a BIG opportunity to make some noise early in the season.

Game 1: Game one started and it was easy to tell that it was both teams first game. The shooting percentages for both teams was terrible. We were 30-80 from the floor, NOT GOOD, and they weren't much better. I want to say they shot it at about 38%. We had a few guys step up and play really good for us. Shane McDonald, our PG, really held us together. he had 22 and was the only real consistent offensive player we had. We also got a big spark off the bench from PF Paul Flynn, known as Flynny. We were 10 down with a few seconds to go in the 3rd, we hit a 3 at the buzzer and it seemed to really change the momentum and we owned the 4th quarter. Ended up winning by 3.

Game 2: Our shooting struggles carried over from Saturday to Sunday. As a team we were 9-22 from the foul line. It is next to impossible to win a close game when shooting that bad from the line! We came out very sluggish to start this game and got into a big hole early. Going into half time we were down 17.  The 3rd quarter started and we had more energy and were making some good defensive plays.  We got a big spark from our bench half way through the 3rd and starting making a big come back.  With 5 minutes to go in the game we were down 8 and it got interesting from there.  We really clamped down the D and had it to a 2 point game. Just over a minute left we are down 2 and had 2 opportunities to take the lead or tie and couldn't get over the hump. They hit a back breaking 3 with 35 seconds to go and that sealed the deal. Ended up losing the game by 3 but took a lot of positives away from the Loss. Only giving up 24 points in the 2nd half was one of the them.

On a personal note, it was NOT the start I was hoping for personally and felt like I let the team down a bit. I had 10 points, 8 rebounds in game 1, on a POOR 4-14 from the floor.  Game 2 was a little better shooting but didn't get to the boards good enough for the team. I was 5-10, 13 points, 2 rebounds. The only bright spot for me was a 3-3 shooting night from 3 point land against Brisbane. I know that it is a long season and things could have been much worse. We are all new and are still learning each others games. I think it is going to be a very exciting season personally and more importantly I think the TEAM will be very successful.

Thanks again for reading........