Lia's First Basketball Game

For the third year in a row, we signed Lia up for basketball through the Parks and Rec program.  However, for the first time ever, she signed up to be on a team without any of her friends.  Sienna, who has played on her team the past two years, decided to play volleyball instead of basketball this winter and Mollie decided to be put on the same team as Lia's old basketball and softball coach who we no longer play for.  However, Lia was totally fine with this and showed up for her first practice in December without any reservations.  Lia was placed on the Huskies team this year to play for Eric, a brand new coach who loves the game of basketball so much that he decided to coach a team without even having a child play on it.  That was a first for us!  Luckily, two girls from Lia's team last year were also placed on this team.  So, at least there were two familiar faces on the first night of practice.
After practicing two times a week for a month, Lia and her team met this morning at one of the junior high schools in our town for their first game.  Since this is our third year watching Lia play basketball in this league, we are used to the fact that most of the other teams are pretty evenly matched to Lia's team.  Occasionally there are one or two really good players on a team, but for the most part all of the girls play at the same ability level.  But that was not the case today.  Unfortunately, Lia's team got assigned to play an unbelievably talented team who came out of nowhere this year.  We figured out that they came from a neighboring town that is know for their phenomenal basketball players at the high school level and it was very apparent that they start "grooming" them at a young age.  So, sadly, Lia's first basketball game was a total bloodbath.  Lia's team couldn't even begin to keep up with this other team and the final score was 6 to 32.  However, I was very proud of the fact that none of these girls on Lia's team gave up.  They kept on fighting to the end.  So, although it was not the funnest way to play their first game of the the basketball season, Lia gave it her all and we are super proud of her!

Lia taking a water break while listening to her coach.

Lia flashing me her pretty smile!

Lia running down the court.

Lia taking the ball down the court.  I just love this picture of her.

Passing the ball to another teammate.

Lia dribbling the ball down court again.

Fighting to keep the ball as the other team swarmed around her.

Another action shot.

Lia dribbling and fighting hard to protect the ball at the same time.

Lia and her team coming back to the bench at the end of the game.