Ella's First Basketball Game

It is no secret that Ella is my busiest child of our four.  She wants to participate in every activity and sport that is available to her which is not possible when juggling three other children with their own activities, sports, and needs after school.  Regardless, I do my best and allowed her to continue with gymnastics this fall while adding soccer and piano to the mix.  Once soccer season was over in mid November, we immediately added ballet back to her schedule.  However, her soccer coach was so impressed with her overall performance this fall, he sent me a text and asked if she would like to be on his basketball team this winter.  Since Ella loves that her best friend, Elise, is Coach Ben's daughter and always plays on his teams, she immediately wanted to give basketball a try.  So, I reluctantly told Ella that she could try it out this winter.  After taking Ella to her Saturday only practices in December, I quickly realized that she didn't quite have the same natural ability for basketball as she did for soccer.  This was kind of a relief for me since I really hoped that her basketball career would be a "one and done" season and that she would never want to play it again.  She didn't have a natural ability to dribble and since she is just so small, none of her shots get high enough to go into the basket.  Ella left these first few practices in December a bit discouraged.

When January arrived, Coach Ben finally sent out the game schedule and I was shocked to discover that Ella was going to miss four out of the eight games due other activities and our CA trip already on the calendar.  This has never happened before to any of our children.  In addition, the park and rec league decided to drop the weekly practice for the younger grades once the games started.  So, this meant that Ella stopped having any chance to improve her skills once January started.  Lastly, since Ella tested positive for Covid (although she was totally asymptomatic), she had to miss her first game resulting in her only playing in three games while having zero practices for the months of January, February, and March.  So, needless to say, this season was a bit of a bust.  I was hoping that she would get a good enough taste of this sport to decide that she no longer has a desire to play it again, but sadly, she isn't going to get much of a taste at all.

So, although it was her team's third game today, Emmett and I showed up to root Ella on for her first game (while Ron and Logan attended Lia's "The Little Mermaid" performance at the same time).  Although Ella has only attended three practices in December, she wasn't intimated by the other girls and gave this game her all.  She ran back and forth on the court with all her might (beating every other player out there) and defended aggressively and fought for the ball as much as she could.  When she did get the ball, she struggled to dribble and shoot, but never seemed bothered by this.  So, I really was impressed with her go-getter attitude and the effort that she gave the entire time.  The game did end on a sad note when she was pushed by another player while running at a full sprint and hit the ground really hard.  The audience even gasped when she fell.  After she started crying on the floor, Coach Ben ran out to comfort her and then gave her permission to come find me.  She ran up the bleacher stairs and to the far back corner where I was sitting while crying and limping the entire time.  It was quite the dramatic finish to her first game.  After comforting her for a few minutes and learning that she really hit her knee badly when falling on the ground, we decided to just leave early to head home so that she could ice her knee on the couch.  So the three of us quietly slipped out before her game even ended.  This was not the most glorious end to Ella's first game, but I am proud of her for giving this game her all and for almost sticking it out until the end.  Here are some photos I managed to take before her fall...

Ella trying to be open for a pass.

Ella guarding her girl.

Dribbling down the court.

Throwing the ball to a teammate.

Passing the ball back into the game another time.

Waiting to receive the ball to take it down the court.

Dribbling down to the basket.

Ella dribbling around the key.

Getting ready to shoot a basket.

Ella sprinting back down the court.

Defending her player.