Travel Hoops

It is early March, and we are at the "pivot point"--a phrase I loathe because of how frequently it is used at work--between athletic seasons. Basketball is over; soccer is upon us. (Don't be fooled by the snow, wind, or cold...it makes perfect sense for soccer tournaments to be scheduled on the first weekend of March. In New England.)

Not one to go a season without some level of competitive athletics, Andres dove into MetroWest (travel) basketball this winter. Newton offers three teams for fourth graders. He made the B team--which, naturally, was labeled a color (orange? black? something) instead of actually being called the B team, although all the kids knew which team they made, and routinely called it the B team when comparing opponents and results.

While player selection for these three teams made total sense to me, I could not figure out the placement of Andres' team within the MetroWest division structure. The A team was in Division 1; the B and C teams were both in Division 5. The first few games were blowouts. Newton beat teams like North Quincy and Natick without much of a fight (though, again, it was unclear to me whether the opponents were the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd team within their own town's structure).

Andres drives to the hoop, against Newton C.

Finally they got a few battles with teams that were, likely, also put in a division too low. They lost to Needham, a loss that was clinched when a Newton player accidentally scored at his own end (press defense can turn kids' minds inside and out in the heat of a game). I felt bad for him. Though, in fairness, this mistake was returned a few weeks later, when a player from Dedham dd the exact same thing against Newton. (Unfortunately, it was just a blip on the stat sheet as Dedham managed to win that game on strong shooting and physical defense.)

A mid-season highlight was a Friday night trip to Harvard, where the team played a 5-minute scrimmage during halftime. Kids' nerves were plain to see as they waited in the wings for their chance at stardom, but once the scrimmage tipped off, they all found their way. It was fun watching Andres and his team buzz up and down the floor in front of an actual audience. (In the real matchup, Harvard put together a big second half run to defeat Penn.)

Andres gets away with a reach during the Harvard scrimmage.

An actual audience was on hand, cheering makes and offering encouragement.

A late-season loss to Weston left the team with a record of 8-3 or so, and good enough to earn a berth in the MetroWest Division 4 playoffs. The first game? A rematch against Dedham. While the regular-season game had been played on Dedham's home court, the playoff game would take place all the way out in Ashland at 5pm on a Wednesday night, because why make anything convenient for anybody.

The boys came ready to play. Newton opened up a small lead in the first quarter--Andres had a nice drive to the hoop for 2--and then, approaching halftime, Dedham forced some turnovers and seized the momentum. The comeback may have happened when Andres was playing point guard, and he may have seemed like a deer caught in the headlights for a couple of minutes, but I don't want to dwell on that too much. He tried his best. (And, in fairness, he said throughout the season that he did not like playing point.)

Newton on the break vs Dedham.

Our hero composes himself before a foul shot.

Halftime calmed Newton's nerves and they came out strong again in the second half. The lead opened up again courtesy of some probing drives, good rebounding, and tenacious defense. Dedham made a few shots to maintain some of the drama going into the fourth quarter, but Newton kept the pressure on and won 31-26. There was much celebration afterwards.

But in the playoffs, there is no time to dwell on success. The boys were back at it a few days later in Stoughton (?!), where they played the bracket's number 1 seed, Canton.

The shots that fell for Newton in their first round simply did not fall in this matchup. The iron was unforgiving; all shooting hands were cold. Despite being unable to convert a single field goal in the first quarter, Newton was only down a few points and still very much in the game. (I actually thought they played well--their shots weren't falling, but at least they were getting high-quality shots. Surely they would start falling. Right?)

Alas, Canton had also had a bad first quarter, and when their shots started swishing in, the situation became increasingly desperate for our local heroes. Our shots never really started falling in. We started giving fouls, Canton played good defense, and the rout was on. The season was over.

It was fun to watch Andres compete with his peers all season. He's a natural in soccer--by which I mean that the game makes sense to him, and no matter whether he is playing with kids who are much better or much worse than him, he always looks comfortable and in control on the pitch. Basketball was a bit different. He gave 100% all the time, but (critical) fans could also tell that there were times he looked a bit out of sorts out there. Help defense wasn't really this thing, and point guard was a stretch for him. He was best as a 2 guard. He was also, according to more than one parent, one of the best passers on the team. (Though you could probably count the number of kids who looked to pass on one hand.)

He picked his spots, though, and used his stature to his advantage. What he gave up on D he took back on O, slithering and sliding through the lane on multiple occasions to score layups. He also developed a nice little mid-range jumper. It looked like he had to put all of his energy into putting the ball up to the hoop when he did shoot them, but more often than not, he found the bottom of the net.

Onto soccer!