Nice Win on the Road

Its Wednesday and I have declared this my writing day for this week. I answered facebook messages, emails, and now finishing up with some blogging.

As the title suggestively suggests (well maybe not suggestively) we did indeed call our two game losing streak to a halt with a solid win over a nice Herford team.

Atmosphere

The gym was one of the nicer ones all-around that we have played in over here. The floor was fairly new (not wood though -- are you kidding me a wood floor in our league, COME ON) and the baskets were nice except for the nets. There really was no purpose for the nets. They were so loose that that ball would fall right through and the net really would not slow it down. There were a number of plays where a player was standing underneath the net and a shot goes up. The ball proceeds to hit the player square in the face because the net failed to slow the ball down.

The gym was fairly small but we had the Spark Notes version of the SixthMan Crew to keep us going. Even though there was probably only six of them, they make more noise than the rest of the crowd. The beauty though of their cheering is in its creativity and relentlessness. 2 very important factors in cheering. I never really noticed the intricacy of their cheering until after this game.

I have my video camera over here and this was the second game that we taped. I hope to make some highlights of the games once I get appropriate software and put them on youtube but I am still waiting for Canon to stop being incopetent. Well back to the story, one of the SixthMan Crew's parentals was kind enough to tape the entire game for us. Lots of love goes out to the mom who taped the game, she did a phenomenal job and the tape looks great. Back to the story again, well I have my video camera at the game and it happens to be right next to the cheering section. There was not a dull moment on the tape, constant cheering. I don't hear much during the game so it was refreshing to hear the passion and consistency from the sixthman cheering section.


Gametime Synopsis

We had a great first quarter taking an early lead. We took advantage of mismatches which allowed me to do a lot of posting up and I was able to get some easy buckets early which helped get my flow going. My teammates did a great job of recognizing the mismatch and getting me open in the post. Freddy also knocked down at least 3 tough three pointers to help us gain the lead.

The second quarter was different story. Defensively we simply did not get it done giving up over 50 points in the first half. Our offense stalled and we stopped hitting from outside. We were not running as much as we usually did too. This lead to an eight point deficit at halftime. Coach was pretty upset at halftime and in the second half we came out a different team.

During the second half we increased our intensity on defense and were able to get some easy buckets off fast breaks. Our shots also began to fall from outside. We erased the deficit after about 2 minutes in the 3rd and didn't look back since. We never really blew them out until the end of the game due to some nice 3 point shooting on their part but we managed to stay in control for the whole second half. The final score was

106-88

Officiating didn't seem to be a problem for anyone in this game. I simply tried to stay out of harms way until the second half so I was out of foul trouble the whole game. As always there were some might I say interesting calls but not enough of "interesting" calls to have a real impact on the game.

StatLines (yes i did do stats after watching the game)

Name - Points - Rebounds - Assists/Turnovers - Steals - Blocks

Wittwer - 33 - 11 - 3/2 - 6- 0
Goldsmith - 18 - 7 - 1/0 - 3 - 0
Denson - 24 - 9 - 5/5 - 2 - 0
Aaron - 14 - 1 - 6/1 - 2- 0
Filipovic - 2 - 1 - 1/3 - 0 - 0
Meinert - 13 - 1 - 1/3 - 0 - 0
Lutteke - 2 - 0 - 1/0 - 0 - 0
Docenko - 0 - 0 - 0/0 - 0 - 0
Manske -0 - 0 - 0/0 - 0 - 0
Tubel - 0 - 0 - 0/0 - 0 - 0