3rd grade mid-season report

Go back to the first time you played a new sport. For most of you, you were in the upper grades, whether it was basketball, baseball, volleyball or soccer. How nervous were you? Now imagine doing that in 3rd grade. Well that's exactly what our six brave 3rd graders are doing this year in basketball.

At 3rd grade, the attention span is definitely shorter than it is when you get older. As their coaches put it, getting them to listen early on was a big problem. But once they started playing games and realizing how important it was to work hard in practice, they started getting their act together.

"Before when I told them to shoot the basket into the hoop, most of them couldn't even get the basketball to touch the net," said coach Jamie Zhao. "But now, they could all shoot."

Their first two games of the year came real quick, a back-to-back for their welcome to basketball. They had some rough spells in those games but have adapt and are now a bit more acquainted to the game situations. They've started to work a lot more together and pick up plays along the way.

"As third graders, they get the plays pretty fast. And we taught them our high school plays," Jamie said.

"Even the parents can see it," added Alice.

It is a difficult task for Alice and Jamie, who are both in high school, trying to coach a team and go to school at the same time. Both of them played for Washington's JV girls team.

Like all teams at St. Mary's, this team is no different. They will have struggles right out of the gate, but if they are patient and keep working at it, good things will come. Hopefully sooner than later.

"I expect them to help each other more in games," Jamie said. "Run the play more, and I want them to talk during games. They talk during practice a lot but not in games."

"I learned a lot of stuff from teaching these kids," Alice said. "Hopefully they continue basketball and learn more stuff as they grow."

"They learn very quickly," Jamie said. "They've improved tremendously since the beginning of the season. Seeing them each grow more and more in basketball makes me feel very happy."