4th Grade - Wainwright

For those interested in keeping track, here are the final scores of our games this season: 10/26 - Albany 34, Bethlehem 0 11/18 – Niskayuna 23, Bethlehem 1 12/3 – Bethlehem 46, St. John the Baptist 12 12/9 – Guilderland 21, Bethlehem 9 12/16 – St. Ambrose 15, Bethlehem 14 12/17 – Bethlehem 16, Duanesburg 1 12/19 – St Basil 13, Bethlehem 9 1/6 – Sacred Heart 12, Bethlehem 6 1/12 – Bethlehem 27, St. Basil 14 1/13 – Our Lady of Victory 15, Bethlehem 8 1/20 – Bethlehem 9, Menands 4 1/27 - Bethlehem Team Wainwright 12, Bethlehem Biddy C 12 2/10 – E. Greenbush 14, Bethlehem 10 2/11 – Bethlehem 10, Hoosic Valley 8 2/26 – Bethlehem 12, Cohoes 10 Final record: 6-8-1 ___________________________

The Eagles win! The Eagles win!! The Eagles win!!! Where do we start? You all did so many things well. Even the score is interesting. The final score was 27-14, but the score at the end of the first half was 8-6, and the other team had the 8. That means you all outscored the other team 21-6 in the second half. (Enough math. Don’t worry girls; Coach Dave and Coach Tom have taken over writing this to prevent Coach Tim from doing more equations.) Let’s see, when we last left our heroines they were behind by two at halftime. That's when we challenged you to rise to the occasion and you busted through the roof. Your offense was amazing considering all of the new things you had to learn over such a short period of time. Your teamwork was outstanding. Everyone got to touch the ball, and that shows in the points: Abbi – 6 Ellie - 3 Emma – 10 Katie – 2 Mary – 2 Olivia – 4 That’s over half the team. Katie asked Coach Tim if St. Basil figured out our offense. And Coach Tim mentioned that the wonderful thing about tonight’s game was that when you saw the other team making adjustments to what you were doing, you made your own adjustments. Being able to see the game in front of you and make changes is something that we as coaches can talk about with you, but it is really something you need to figure out for yourself by trying new things. We are all very proud of you. The defense was equally amazing. The zone and the chasers both did a super job. We challenged the three zone players to play against four players from the other team which allowed us to double team number 23. And you did great! You intercepted passes, you blocked shots, and you rebounded. Simply put, you did it all. The chasers were excellent as well. As we mentioned in the last write-up about St. Basil, number 23 is probably the best player we have faced all year and our chasers shut her down. The team’s combined defense completely took St. Basil out of their game plan. Coach Tim wants to say one more thing. He said that our opponents have only averaged 12.6 points per game over our last 7 games. That’s something to be very proud of. Coach Tim didn’t have an explanation as to how the other team scored 0.6 points, but that will give him something to think about. Anyway, we mentioned how the progress of our team has been like putting together a wonderful puzzle. We think you all can see the pieces coming together. We still have many tough games ahead of us and as with games in the past, they may go either way, but the one thing that will always be true is how proud we all are of you. The Coaches ___________________________

Well, it was another close, hard-fought game, 12-6. We know it is the weekend and no one wants to do math, but that is only a difference of 1 basket every 8 minutes. Given all the changes we made this week, and the fact that it was our first game after a long break, that's awesome. We introduced a new defense and you all played it very well. Sacred Heart has scored many more points against other teams and we held them to only 12 points. We saw you hauling down more rebounds than we think we ever have. We couldn't be more pleased with how you learned and played our new defense. Very impressive! On offense we moved a number of you to new positions and you all did a terrific job adjusting to your new role. We don't remember another game where you all passed so much against such a skilled defense. We loved how all of you had a chance to touch the ball on offense. There was one play where there were at least 3 passes before we scored - it was beautiful to watch. That's what we should work on doing more of in the coming weeks. The points are as follows: (Before we get to the points, here's a short message: We wish we were keeping track of stats like rebounds, assists and steals, because those lists would be long, include everybody's name, and tell the true story of how well you all are doing. Now, back to our program...) Olivia - 2 Sarah - 4 As we have said before, you all have made tremendous strides this season and we will continue to challenge you to make more. Don't get caught up in our record or the scores. We have been in every game over the last 6 games and all of them could have gone either way. The teamwork that you showed yesterday shows us how far you've come. There are so many pieces to the basketball puzzle: fundamentals like ball-handling, passing, shooting, boxing out, setting picks, rebounding. Strategies like offensive plays, moving without the ball, girl-to-girl defense, zone defense and inbounds plays. It's a lot to learn. When you start a puzzle, you search for the individual pieces, and then begin to try to make them fit. Right now, we're working on the edges and the corners of the puzzle, and it's going great. But it's a lot of hard work and sometimes frustrating. But we can tell it's going to look beautiful when it all comes together. You should all be very proud of how well you played. We are!! The Coaches ___________________________

Another really close game! Although we lost 13 to 9, we were in it right until the end. As we mentioned at the game, it is amazing to look back on how much you all have improved over the last couple months. Tonight was a new challenge that we needed to adapt to during the game. The other team had one very outstanding player. Number 23 on St. Basil was probably the best player we have faced all year, and for the better part of the game, you shut her down. We adapted our defense to allow other Eagles to help out the girl guarding 23 and it worked. For most of the second half, she was being forced to take really tough shots because you all were playing such amazing defense. On offense, you needed to adapt as well and you all did a very nice job. Both our passing and our rebounding were excellent. The points on offense were as follows: Abbi - 5 Ellie - 2 Olivia - 2 We have had an amazing first half of our season. We can't believe how much you all have improved. If someone had told us 2 months ago that you would be calling plays and running a fairly complicated offense it would have been hard to imagine. You all amaze us. Enjoy the holidays and a well deserved vacation :-) The Coaches PS A huge thank you to all the parents. We know this is a big commitment for you, and we really appreciate your support, enthusiasm and help at the games. ___________________________

Awesome! Eagles win, 16-1! We are very proud of how you built on your experience from Saturday night and brought it all together today. The Girl Scouts have a motto of "Be Prepared" — we have a motto of "Be Aggressive", and tonight you were. You all played tenacious defense, shutting out the other team for 29 minutes and 55 seconds. Wow! As you can see, your hard work is paying off. Every game you are improving and tonight you continued that trend. As always, the highlight of the game was our teamwork. Every single player has a key role in both our offense and defense. On offense we need shots, picks and rebounds and everyone of you is involved with making those happen. Tonight was the best defense we have seen all year. We didn't give up any easy shots and there were so many steals and jump balls that we lost track of the amount. Whenever a player on the other team would get by one of our players, another Eagle came to help out. Whenever the other team tried to shoot the ball, there was an Eagle with her hands up blocking the shot. Our points were as follows: Abbi - 8 Emma - 4 Olivia - 4 (We are missing one basket on the score sheet, so we're sorry if we didn't get the points right. Please let us know if we made a mistake and we will get it corrected). Tuesday is our last game of 2006. Play like you did tonight and we finish the year strong, no matter what the final score is. Keep up the hard work. We are all very proud of you. The Coaches ___________________________