3rd/4th grade mid-season review

I've said it before, that 3rd/4th grade girls basketball is kind of like soccer and hockey. There isn't too much scoring and usually a basket or two will decide the fate of the game.

So far this season, the 3rd/4th grade girls have lost two of their games by a combined 3 points. Both times, ONE shot in the final quarter made the difference.

There isn't much to review other than the fact that they need more game experience and need to be tougher on the court. Nobody feels sorry for anybody when a game is going on and at times, I think our girls might be too nice and don't have the aggressiveness needed.

One HUGE problem, that is out of the girls and coaches control is the fact that they have only 6 players. And out of the six -- more than half of them -- 4 of the girls -- are in 3rd grade.

At this level, it's hard enough to play against teams your own age, let alone, an entire year older. The difference from grade to grade in size and skill is very drastic. Most, if not all the teams we play against are an entire head bigger than our 3rd graders. Yet, they still manage to go out and compete.

Two of our coaches, Alex and James, are two years younger than I am, and are just slightly better basketball players than I am. But if I was in 8th grade, and they were in 6th grade, I'd dominate them and PWN them on a daily basis. When you're older, age doesn't matter so much. When you are still in school, it's almost half the battle.

How can we solve it? We need more 4th grade girls to play. Do any of the 4th grade girls, or their families look at this blog? Probably not. But in case they do, we need them to play.

There are enough girls in the 4th grade to have a team of their own, but unfortunately the interest is not there, whether it'd be a fear of playing sports or something else.

But until we can solve that problem, these 6 brave girls will march on and do their best in their rookie season. Already, they have improved a lot and game by game, have gotten better. That's all we can ask for.

They get off pretty good shots and have good ball movement for their level. But it's just getting the hang of things, the experience, that will eventually get them over the hump.