We're Gonna Win!!*

Tonight was an incredible basketball game. I mean, I'm still geeking out about it. We started off the game pretty good and I felt like people were all generally in a good mood too (despite the loss we had the night before). It just kept going, I mean, the score was close, we were ahead, fell behind, ahead again...like a horse race. My favorite part of the whole evening however was the fact that I was taller than all of the other team's girls. This means one thing and one thing only to me - stuff after stuff after stuff. And clean stuffs too. The refs can't call a foul on you when you stuff a short girl cause they can see clearly that there is no foul. There was one point when I stuffed three people in a row. That's a proud moment for this little ball player.

At one point I did get frustrated and that's when I looked at the scoreboard and we were behind, but I could have sworn that we had just made several baskets, I wasn't accusing the score keepers of foul play or anything, it was just frustrating. Like being at work and thinking an hour has gone by when it's only been 20 minutes, you know. I said something to Amber about it and she gave me a look so I apologized, I wasn't trying to sound negative or anything.

I did receive a little bit of karma this evening. In last night's game I knocked down/tripped/tackled at least 3 girls from the other team (it wasn't malicious intent, I was just after the ball) and tonight I got knocked down...it was awesome. I only hope it looked as cool as it felt. I fell on the ground and I guess I had a lot of momentum and I flipped around. I'm kind of a "pain is glory" type of person, I mean, right now I'm pretty stoked that I have bruises all up and down my arm, two bloody knees (with lovely bruises to the side), a very tiny bruise on my face from last night's game...you get the idea. Long time reader's have seen the pictures (sorry - I'm almost certain no one enjoyed seeing all those bloody photographs). Best part, the refs called a foul and I got to take a shot. The other team had fouled us so much that it was one-one. If I made this shot I could take another, and by the look of the score it could bring us closer. There wasn't much time left in the game, but I wanted to do all I could to help get us that much closer to winning. I believe in Miracles, I believed that somehow these girls could get 5 points in under a minute.

Hate to break it to you, but I missed the shot, the other team got the rebound and headed down the court. But my girls (and since I am coach I can call them "My girls" and do so proudly) picked up the defense and the other team didn't make a shot. We were killing it with defense, rebounds, passes, and putting the ball up. I loved it. Like I said earlier...geeking out about it! We didn't make any more shots, but neither did the other team. We did our cheer for them and gave them high fives and told them how they did. My friend Renada gave me grief because I told her to go easy on me tonight and she says that she did...and I stuffed her twice (and tripped her once - but only I really knew that - until now I guess). My team called me over and they were debating doing the victory circle. Sometimes some of the girls do a victory circle around the circle in the middle of the gym (like in Wii soccer, as Erica put it). Then I heard someone say, "We probably shouldn't since we lost." But I had already walked away and I ran the victory circle by myself, my team cheering for me...I normally don't run the victory circle because I am too self conscious, but I was so proud of the way my team had played I was on a little bit of a high.
Everyone was still talking about it as I walked over to the bench to get my stuff and I said, "I don't care that we lost we played really well!" One of our male cheerleaders looked at me and was like, "You guys won."

Me: Whatever! (walking over to 'the book')
Cam & Drew: Look at the score, 31 to 27.
Me: (looking down at 'the book') Where's the score in this thing?! (then...lightbulb*)Oh my gosh, I've been looking at the wrong score. We won!

I had assumed all the excitement was over how well we had played as a team. I honestly thought we lost. A bunch of us went out for ice-cream afterwords (and I got free ice-cream - go feminine wiles!) I made a toast to the team and Amber let everyone know that we did, in fact win, in case I wasn't the only one who didn't realize it.

I don't know how I am supposed to sleep tonight. I shall dream of our sweet, sweet victory.