Tigers Win the Opener!

2000 Burney Champs!

Well, here I sit in the Green Gables Hotel in Burney. It is my fifth, and last, Burney Jamboree Basketball Tournament (Burney Tourney). The first one was in December of 2000. Emily came up here as a freshman JV player, and her Team won the tournament. They were ecstatic.It is bittersweet to be here with Lu. She was only 7 when Em left us. So Small, and innocent. God it hurt!

Emmy

This is my and Lucy's last high school basketball tournament. It has been such fun! Lu has had a very successful basketball career. But before I get too emotional, here's what happened last night against the Fall River Bull Dogs. By the way, the Dogs defeated our girls in the Burney tournament last year.

Lucy and her good friend Bailey Holt did the preliminaries with the the referees at mid court. Lu was selected as one of the captains after the leadership she showed in resolving some early team issues. She and Bailey have been tossing the coin since the Tiger Classic (which I didn't post about due to issues discussed in my last post)

Captains Lucy and Bailey

Portola started out slowly. It looked like they were in a trance for the first quarter, and Fall River looked sharp. Only some good defense kept them in the game as they finished the first quarter down by 13 to 3! The girls finally woke up, outscoring Fall River 29 to 12 in the second quarter. Senior guard Bailey Holt got the Tigers untracked with a looping 3 point bucket, and two field goals; while Sophomore Emma Briggs tore up the key with 12 second stanza points. The Lady Tigers took a 7 point lead to the locker room. Lucy was vicious on the boards pulling down 7 first half rebounds, and tallying three points.

The scoring evened out in the third period, but Fall River's outside shooting started to chip away at the Tiger's lead in the final frame. It took our girls a while to decide to defend against the outside shots. Luckily they were all within the 3-point line, but the Bull Dogs kept snapping at the Tigers heels. A series of crucial turnovers by Portola helped Fall River to pull within 3 points with about 1:30 remaining. The Tigers tightened their defense, but it wasn't enough to prevent a short range jumper that narrowed the lead to one point with 28 seconds left to play. After a timeout, Portola brought the ball in and managed to get it in the hands of their hottest free throw shooter, Emma Briggs, with 8 seconds left. Briggs drained the first toss for the last of her game high 22 points to make the lead an even 2. Her second shot bounced off the rim but Lucy outfought the dogs and pulled down the rebound. Lu held onto the ball under pressure, and with 2 seconds to go, bounced it out to point guard Lindsay Compton who was promptly fouled. Compton missed the charity toss, but it was too late for Fall River, as the Tigers sent them back to the kennel as time ran out on the inbound pass.

Leading the scoring for the Lady Tigers was Emma Briggs with 22 points, followed by Ellie Kibble with 10, Bailey Holt with 9, and Lucy with 7. Compton pulled down 9 rebounds, with Lucy grabbing 8, and Briggs snatching 7.

It was a good start for the girls. They play their second game against the hometown Burney Raiders tonight at 6:00. This is Dad, signing off for now.

That's All