First Regular Season Game

Well Saturday was our first regular season game...you probably picked that up from my über creative title, huh? Well I woke up Saturday morning the way I usually do (this has not changed from when I lived in the States)...me thinking, 'what day is it? Why am I awake? What should I be doing?' Think think think...I happily remembered, 'It's GAME DAY!'...

We were supposed to have a home game, but due to some sort of scheduling conflict we played at a gym in Berlin somewhere far far away...(someday I will know the geography of this place)...

We got to the gym about an hour and a half before our game. There was a small crowd of 6-11 (guesstimate) year old girls outside the gym- we had cheerleaders! Ha ha! Some cheerleading club asked us if they could cheer at our games as practice...

We went in and found our locker room and started getting ready...I was all dressed but I had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom in our locker room, of course, did not have toilet paper...Decided to just wait and go later.

We went out and started warming up. I had on my new Lebron Soldier's which I had just bought the day before at Nike Town. I had gone there three different times to try on shoes, to make sure I really liked the ones I got because I have had issues with the last three pairs of basketball shoes I have bought. I also brought my Kobe's with me just in case having new shoes on bothered my feet...The Lebrons felt good for about thirty minutes. Then, when going through the layup line I felt a sharp pain in my left arch, where the flywire on my shoe seemed to be giving way. I started praying that my shoes would be okay...

About 20 min before game time our team went back into the locker room to meet. Coach gave us some instructions and a motivational pre game talk. I still had to go to the bathroom. On the way back out to the court (which involved going down a hall way and a flight of stairs) I tried going into two other locker rooms to see if their bathrooms had toilet paper- strike two and strike three...I ran out to the court to ask the people working the table where I could find a bathroom with toilet paper. The guy I asked said, 'huh, good question' and referred me to someone else. This man told me my best bet was the restroom upstairs in the lobby.

At this point there were 6 minutes left on the clock for warm up time. I ran back out of the gym, up the stairs, down the hallway, and to the bathroom in the lobby...No toilet paper. No paper towels either. 'What is the matter with these people?'

I ran to the snack bar and asked for a couple napkins, ran back to the bathroom and quickly took care of business and back down to the court...I got there with 27 seconds of warm up time remaining. I ran to get back in the layup line and my arch was still bothering me. I went to the bench to try tying my shoes tighter, to see if that helped my arch get more support. Of course with the straps on my shoe that have to be undone to mess with the shoe laces this took me some time. Everyone was on the court waiting for me. I tried to hurry, with my teammates making fun of me that I need help tying my shoes...I ran out onto the court, said hi to everyone (here you usually go and high five each of the opponents and say hello and shake the ref's hand before you start), tucked in my shirt at the ref's command, and got ready to play.

We started out the first few minutes in a blaze. We couldn't miss. If we did miss, we crashed the offensive boards and got the put back or the foul. Everything was going great- except for my arch...I decided I had better take care of it before I ended up with an injury. While one of my teammates was shooting a freethrow, I told my coach I needed a quick sub. We had been playing for maybe 3 or 4 minutes at this point. I went out and changed back into my Kobe's, then got subbed right back in.

The game went much like some of the other games we have played. We rocketed out to a lead, something like 19-4, then started cooling off a little bit. We then would go through streaks of scoring and streaks of turnovers or defensive breakdowns. With all that though, I think we went into halftime up by about 20+ points.

In this game I shot okay. I missed two shots I should have made- one a put back after getting an offensive rebound at the free throw line, and the other a shot I tried to tip in on my teammate's fast break layup.

I hit a couple of threes, one off the dribble and one on a skip pass. I think my most important basket came in the third quarter when we hit a slump and hadn't scored in a few minutes. We were struggling against their zone, I got the ball on the right wing and dribbled across the key, through the defense and made a step through to finish with my left hand and pick up a foul. I finished the FT for the 3 pt play to help our team get a little momentum.

My dumbest play of the game was when I got a steal and went out on the fast break, my 6'4" post player running the floor with me. We had a 2 on 1 and I wish I had passed Louisa the ball, but I thought I might have a better chance of finishing the play myself. The defender jumped in front of me and I trucked her. She was certainly moving, but it didn't matter. Ref called me for charging and we missed the opportunity. I should have passed...

The game was really fun overall. We had a good sized crowd out from our club and they were into the game. It was fun to hear them get excited for us in good plays in the game!

Everyone was excited when the game finished and we had won our first regular season game by (I think) 23 points. Dani, our other starting wing, finished as the high scorer with 23 points herself. In the first quarter she was on a rampage! (My final stat line was 13 pts, I think 8 rebounds and 5 steals)...

Now we are getting ready for next weekend. My teammates say the team will be much better, the other team has 2 or 3 Americans...Tini said 'yeah, we have just one American, and we got the skinny one.' Huh...