Last night we began our last End of the Season Tournament! My team had a perfect set up to make it to the championship. And they have been playing lights out the last several games. I had no doubt we were ready to play! We had done our homework (scouted the teams, made game strategies, put in the extra practice, etc).
Our first game was against the worst seeded team. In theory, we should have blown this team away to advance to semi-final. We have played this team twice in the regular season to win both games by 20+ points. But the team was able to pick up several select players (that usually play with Zander on his select team). We played our hearts out! We played the best game I could ever dream of! We were behind by around 8 most of the game (12pts difference at once point) and would close the gap to 3 just to get back behind. It was like this the whole game....and with two minutes left, we were down by 9 points. We came back and were winning by 2 points with 5 seconds left. But it wasn't enough. We went into overtime....and after an amazing game and effort, we lost by 3points in OVERTIME.
This is where it got emotional. **THE MOM AND GIRL IN ME CAME OUT!!!
The boys were sobbing! I was trying to hold it together but the reality that these (once little boys) were now officially done playing under my supervision! My time with these boys had come to an end!
All of a sudden I felt time slipping away from me in that quick moment. These little boys were young men looking right at me with big ole tears falling from there eyes. It was so difficult to have that last team meeting...and our last team prayer! I loved on them, told them how proud I was of them and that IF they thought the last 4years were fun, they were gonna love what Middle School and High School had in store for them. I then prayed over and for each of them....just one last time.
I couldn't be more proud of each boy on that team. It was the best game they had ever played and it took SELECT players to knock us out of the championship. But what was so emotional was letting go in the next several hours to come.......
The drive home was HARD! Todd is out of town so I was driving us. Zander was crying so hard ALL THE WAY HOME (he isn't an emotional kid so that was extremely hard). Gabe and Addison were crying! I was starting to get upset about the fact that the opposing team was allowed to stack a team for the tournament (that's another story I won't go into)....
Then we get home.... Zander decided to sleep with me in my bed. I said my prayers and tried to go to sleep but couldn't. All I could do was recall the time I have had with these boys......
-As second or third graders, it was comical to get them to even line up in a straight line or just barely hit the rim on a ten foot goal!!
-Or how I would take them to a Gunter HS playoff games just for the fun of it.
-Or how we would scrimmage each other....or they would shot free throws and I would run if they made it! ***Any bride seemed to help!
-Speaking of bribes---I even bribed them into wearing matching headbands one time if we scored 50points in a game!
-Or how the boys would come over right after school with Zander to have snacks, go to practice, eat pizza and go to church with us..
-Or our random "fake, made up" drive way tournaments!!! And yes, the boys made their own homemade jerseys and trophys. LOL!!!
(This list could go on and on....)
Time is slipping away so quickly! And in the last couple of days I have grieved a little about having to let go of this team! But I am also soo excited to see what the future holds for these amazing kids!! They are a special group of boys whom I do love! God's got some big plans for these boys and I am honored to have been a part of their lives for this short amount of time!!! And I will always treasure these moments I have had sharing my love for this crazy sport with my son and his friends!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment