Our Girls 👧 played a home game last night 🌙 against a young Glenvar team that is struggling to compete this season. The Highlanders are Coached by Mr. Jeff Johnson and he is a stand up guy. I made the point to share thoughts with then before and after the game, offering words of encouragement. His Ladies gave him their best effort from start to finish and he gave them all of the guidance he could in a very positive manner.
Last night I was sitting at the scorers table next to a pair of Classy Ladies and the three of us spent the game quietly pulling for some of their shots to drop. We won the game by a wide margin and there are a few things I would like to focus on. No need for a game story because Allen Worrell was in the building meaning he has that part covered.
#1 – My level of respect grows every time I watch Coach Marc Motley when he’s dealt what I would call an unplayable hand. The game is a Three Rivers District game meaning it has to be played and our Coach accomplished two things last night. Motley was able to coach up his young team and do so with a touch of kindness.
Leading 21-0 with 1:58 left on the clock ⏰ in the first quarter, Motley used a move made famous by Dean Smith back in the day. The legendary Tara Heel coach would swap out his entire starting five with the second team. People also refer to it as a Hockey Line change.
Out went Alyssa Ervin, Katie Lam, Madison Lyons, Corrie Delp and Kacie Young and in came Bayliegh Allen, Savannah Swecker, Madison Coleman, Callie Harris and Laiken Burnett.
This continued through out the contest and Coach tweaked his group on the floor to make the best use of their time. I will note that Ervin finished the night with 27 points and Katie Lam added 13 points but let’s turn our attention to Corrie and Laiken for a minute. Here we have our resident Track prodigy and one of our Softball players that happens to be balanced and talented enough to play Varsity this year in all three seasons.
In order a Varsity Basketball player goes through this process :
Try out for the team, make their first basket and if they are really fortunate record a game in double figures.
One night after her Coach stated that Burnett had given him the best minutes of the season, Burnett broke the final barrier by scoring 10 points. The game created an uneasy atmosphere due to the lopsided score so I don’t know how mean people realize that it happened but I sure did.
MIss Burnett, Welcome to the Land of Double figures !!!!
Now on to Miss Delp and your night. The first time I noticed Corrie is she would be sitting in the stands at our Softball games with her friends offering them encouragement. In the World 🌎 of Softball that’s a big deal because not a great deal of the Student Body ends up across the street. In fairness that’s in part to the fact that we field 11 teams in the Spring.
Watching Corrie last night she reached eight points in the middle of the third quarter but the circumstances of the game had her sitting out the remainder of the game.
Back to the photo 📷 at the top of the post 📫. I used the same picture for a story where I was comparing Marc Motley to Ward Clever from Leave it to Beaver. Feel free and go back and read that one, it was a fun write ✍. While I fully understand the wisdom of leadership skills that Motley has I will take this time to acknowledge what I see my role with this particular group is.
What do any of you old enough to remember June Cleaver ? She always had Wards back and gave her unconditional support to him plus those Boys 👦 were her pride and joy.
Motley has to coach them and at times discipline them in order to lead them to the level of success they achieve.
It’s my role to support this group of young Ladies from a distance, offer them an occasional word of encouragement and always a smile in their direction. Maybe I could even use the Grandparents angle versus the Parents in regards to spoiling them.
Last night we won a ball game by a large margin that could have been that twice over and to write ✍ a game story about it would be tough so I’m thankful that Allen was there.
But give me the opportunity to type out praise in their direction, that is what I do as June !
One of the line changes….
A.S.P.N on The Hill 