8th Grade Week on the Blog

Starting tonight will be 8th grade week on the blog, featuring reflections from 8th grade students, coaches, maybe even parents and teachers. This will all lead up to the graduation Friday night and the dinner dance on Saturday. So keep an eye out this week as we take a look back at the journey of the class of 2010.

Thank you everybody!

Photos courtesy of the Great Eunice Tom

Thanks again to everybody who came out tonight to Awards Night. In my humble opinion, probably the best one to date. It was a lot of fun reminiscing on an incredible year. If you want to relive some moments from Awards Night, I'll upload the videos within the week.

I'll have a whole list of thank yous for tomorrow. I'm a little tired -- now it's spaghetti time.

Thanks again everybody.

AWARDS NIGHT WINNERS

Boys Basketball Player of the Year
Derek - 8th

Girls Basketball Player of the Year
Marissa - 7th

Boys Basketball Hustle Player of the Year
Justin - 7th

Girls Basketball Hustle Player of the Year
Serina - 7th

Boys Basketball Most Improved Player
Miles - 7th

Girls Basketball Most Improved Player
Melinda - 8th

Volleyball Player of the Year
Marissa - 7th

Volleyball Most Improved Player
Sally - 8th

2010 Lady Byng Awards

Sally, Brandon and Emily

 















 2010 Athlete of the Year
Derek

2010 St. Mary's Athletics Award Nominees

Boys Basketball Player of the Year
Derek - 8th
Miles - 7th
Justin - 5th

Girls Basketball Player of the Year
Melinda - 8th
Tianna - 8th
Marissa - 7th

Boys Basketball Hustle Player of the Year
Justin - 7th
Michael F. - 7th
Daniel - 5th

Girls Basketball Hustle Player of the Year
Serina - 7th
Melinda - 8th
Sally - 8th

Boys Basketball Most Improved Player
Elliot - 8th
Miles - 7th
Justin - 7th

Girls Basketball Most Improved Player
Melinda - 8th
Sally - 8th
Tiffany - 8th

Volleyball Player of the Year
Emily - 8th
Tianna - 8th
Marissa - 7th

Volleyball Most Improved Player
Tiffany - 8th
Michelle - 8th
Sally - 8th

2010 Lady Byng Awards
The Lady Byng Award is awarded to individuals who display sportsmanship, effort and school spirit through their work and actions. This year, one boy and one girl from the 8th grade will receive this honor.

2010 Athlete of the Year
Each year, one graduate from the 8th grade class is given the Athlete of the Year Award. It is given to an individual who has excelled in all sports, which encompasses everything from track and field to volleyball or soccer.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to our 4th/5th grade volleyball coach and 7th grade girls assistant coach Lin-Pei. Video will be efforted at a later date.

Sorry for the lack of blog updates. The combination of the blog acting up with users with IE along with Awards Night cramming have led to the low content on the blog. After Awards Night, it will pick back up as there are a lot of things I am looking forward to sharing.

Melinda on wrong end of achievement game

Melinda represented St. Mary's tonight in the annual CYO Achievement Game, but unfortunately was placed on a team that was a little over-matched. Her team loss 32-20.

She had several blocks in the game and went for a steal midway through the third. She rolled her ankle on the play and did not return to the game. It was unfortunate because it looked like she was the only girl that was playing defense on her team.

All-Star Sunday Recap

All-Star Sunday was cut short a little bit today due to some NDV school functions. The 2-Ball and 3-Point Shootout will take place Thursday night at Cameron House.

As for the events today, we tipped off with the Girls Alumni Game, which was a low scoring affair. The classes of 2007 and 2008 topped the class of 2009 18-10. All five players on the '07 and '08 team scored with Susan Yao leading the way with a game-high 8 points.

Sophia Nguyen had 6 points for the class of 2009.

In the Boys Alumni and Coaches game, the Coaches were victorious for the second year in a row. It was a much closer contest this year than last year's (because I wasn't playing...). The coaches won 49-44.

Alex Kawashima and James Chiu carried the offense with Alex scoring 18 points and James scoring 22 points.

In the Girls All-Star Game, Emily was named the game's MVP as the White Team squeaked by the Red Team 20-18. Melinda had 12 points in a losing effort, including two three-pointers.

In the Young Stars Game, Team Red beat Team White 8-4. Isabella had 4 points, while Edwena and Jamie both had 2 points. Miracle and Fiona scored for Team White.

And finally in the Schoolwide Knockout Game, Elliot outlasted Gavin L. and Justin G. to become the Ultimate Knockout Champion.

Track and Field Recap

Thanks for the following students who came out, ran and did field events for today.

Jonathan, Fiona, Jamie, Tiffany, Daniel, Justin G., Brandon K., Hartman, Garrick, Jeremy, Justin, Miles, Gavin L., Mark, Gavin C., Kelvin, Kevin, Gary, Derek, Tommy and Tianna.

Among the highlights were both the 7th and 8th grade relay teams finishing third and Miles, who took home first place in the 7th grade high jump.

Justin qualified for both 7th grade finals in the 400m and 100m. He placed 5th in the 100m and 4th in the 400m.

A video will be up later this week documenting today's events.

See everybody tomorrow at All-Star Sunday.

Talent Show 2010

Here are some videos from the Talent Show today. There are three videos total, Part 1, Part 2 and Edwena singing Taylor Swift's, You Belong To Me. Thanks to Sally and Melinder for filming this afternoon.

Track and Field, All-Star Sunday

Here is the list and times of events for Track and Field Sunday. Click the photo below to see it in full size.



It is at Riordan. You do not have to participate in every event, so if you can come by for just a handful of events, do so. This event is free and is a great way to close out the athletic season.




3-point Shootout Contestants
Marissa
Emily
Melinda
Tiffany
Sally
Tianna

Wongs vs Lees
Elliot and Edwena vs Raymond and Kevin

Ultimate Knockout
The entire school, boys and girls participate in a knockout game

2-Ball Teams
Jamie Zhao – Adrianna
Lin Pei Chin – Serina
Alice Cen – Miracle
Tiffanie Yu – Marissa
Alex Kawashima – Isabella
Tiffanie Vuong – Melinda
Bryan Cheung – Emily
James Chiu - Amanda

Boys Coaches/Alumni Game
Team Red – Andrew Chuong, Michael Chan, Jonathan Chiu, Freddy Ng, Justin Khuu, Anthony Wong, ,David Guo, Ryan Woo, John Wang,
Team White – Larry Wong, Ronnie Leung, Alex Kawashima, James Chiu, Justin Hong, Mr. Ballesteros, George Nguyen

Girls Coaches/Alumni Game
Team Red –Sophia Nguyen, Vivian Leung, Shari Wong, Priscilla Yu, Michelle Chiu, Jessica Wong
Team White – Susan Yao, Tiffanie Vuong, Tiffanie Yu, Jamie Zhao, Alice Cen,

Young Stars Game
Team Red – Isabella, Adrianna, Ivy, Edwena, Jamie, Lisa, Alexis
Team White – Tiffany, Miracle, Alexandria, Fiona, Victoria

All-Star Game
Team Red – Tianna, Melinda, Sally , Tiffany, Catharine, Amanda
Team White – Marissa, Serina, Emily, Beverlyn, Patricia

Championship Videos

Since we were richarded by CYO, currently we only have some footage of the 8th grade championship game. A quick reaction by myself after the game as well as the RAW uncut trophy presentation.

7th grade girls repeat, champions once again

The 7th grade girls made it back-to-back and won the championship for the second straight season by a score of 22-10 over NDV.

Marissa led the way once again and had a game-high 14 points, while Beverlyn came through with 6 points of her own. Amanda also added 2 points.

They got off to a slow start offensively and only led by a score of 10-4 at halftime. But they broke it open in the third and led 18-6 after three.

Everyone stepped up their game on both ends of the court and their defense showed, limiting NDV to only 10 points the entire game.

Again, this team had only five girls and Catharine got into foul trouble, picking up her fourth foul late in the third. But they weathered the storm and managed to pull it out.

This team has had to overcome a lot of obstacles, since they only have five players, and only four of them practice together during the week. Their practice time with all five players is limited to Sunday so it's a pretty good accomplishment for them to repeat as champions.

Amanda, who is only in 6th grade, dramatically improved her game, and was a valuable asset to this team. She was quick on defense and started contributing offensively towards the end of the season.

And what about head coach James Chiu, who has won back-to-back champions for the 7th grade -- one for the boys and then one for the girls.

Assistant coaches, Freddy Ng, Lin-Pei Chin and TIffanie Yu also did a tremendous during the course of the season.

Their efforts paid off and tonight they are repeat champions.

8th grade takes second

The 8th grade girls played a pretty solid game but just couldn't score. Midway through the third quarter, the girls were stuck on just one point.

It was difficult for the girls to get any inside shots on such a big and physical team. They made a late run when some of their outside shots started to fall, but it was a little too late as the 8th grade girls fall 29-14 in their final game as students of St. Mary's.

Defensively, they had a few break downs, but none too drastic and they allowed a season-high 29 points. They never got into any rhythm and were unable to get out on the fast breaks, where they score the bulk of their points. By the time they were able to start hitting some shots, it was already the fourth quarter.

Melinda hit a three, the first of her career and the first one by a St. Mary's girl this season. Emily, Tianna and Melinda all scored 3 points. Tiffany had two nice jump shots in the fourth and Sally added a free-throw.

They finish their season, only losing to the eventual champions, so this loss is nothing to be too sad about.

Congratulations to the 8th grade girls for a wonderful season.

Championship Monday

You are forced to pick sides...the 7th grade or the 8th grade. Don't be stuck at home and at least go to one of these huge monumental games tonight.

7th grade plays at CYO Serramonte and while the 8th grade plays at St. Emydius. Both games will start at 7:30 p.m.

Baseball drops finale

The baseball team dropped their season finale this afternoon. They did score three runs on the afternoon, one courtesy of an RBI single from Mark.

Tommy pitched solid again and walked on two batters in three innings, as errors did the team in again.

Derek had a solid double into the outfield and pitched an inning in relief.

8th grade girls championship bound

The 8th grade girls normally own the first quarter. Tonight, they owned the second instead.

They outscored St. Peter Pacifica 16-1 in the second to open up a 20-5 halftime lead and they never looked back, as they punched their ticket to the championship for the first time with a 26-10 win.

The scoring slowed down in the second half, as the girls didn't push it as hard as they did in the first half. But defensively, they held strong and limited St. Peter Pac to only 5 points the entire second half.

In that thunderous second quarter, the girls did everything right. They boxed out and grabbed the key rebounds to start the fast break, they hit their lay-ups and defensively put the pressure on to create good fast break opportunities. The girls have never played any better than they did to close out the first half.

It was another great team effort as each girl contributed in their own way. Melinda took the jump ball tip from Tianna and raced to the basket to give the girls a quick 2-0 lead.

Sally, who shared a game-high 7 points with Tianna, was everywhere on defense, creating havoc.

Patricia didn't get on the scoreboard, but she made her presence felt defensively. She forced several turnovers and made life difficult for the St. Peter Pac guards. She also took care of the ball very well tonight and made some really good passes.

And now the class of 2010 will look to put the final stamp on their careers at St. Mary's with a championship. They will play St. Peter's, who beat them 17-16 the last time they met. This time, it will be a whole new ballgame and the girls' confidence has to be at an all time high.

After previous frustrating seasons of (2-6) and (4-4), they put up a (7-1) record this season and are now a win away from winning it all.

Melinda, Tiffany and Emily all scored 4 points in the win.

7th grade girls back in the championship

There were moments tonight coach James Chiu had flashbacks about the 7th grade boys playoff game, when Miles fouled out.

Several girls on the 7th grade girls team were flirting with disaster, especially Catharine who picked up foul number four midway through the third.

That was the only way the girls could've possibly lost tonight, if they were down 4-on-5. And even then, it still would've been a toss up.

But the girls did what they needed to do and beat rivalry OLP by a final score of 27-12. They led 17-7 at halftime and defensively shut down OLP in the second half. The fourth quarter was very lethargic as everybody pretty much knew the game was over.

Marissa had another big game and scored 17 points, and worked her way to the free-throw line as usual. She shot 7-for-11 from the line.

Serina, who wasn't even at school today with a fever, got the girls off on the right foot and went strong for a lay-up to give the girls the early 2-0 lead.

She controlled the game as the point guard and did a great job taking care of the ball and has improved her game immensely just over the course of this second half of the season.

Up next for the girls is a date with NDV, who upset Epiphany tonight. Barring an input error, this would be the second time in two years Epiphany has gone (8-0) in the regular season and lost in the playoffs. The now 7th grade girls beat them on their home court last year on their way to win the championship.

With only five girls, everyone needs to contribute and they did so tonight. If they play as strong as they did tonight, it'll be a repeat as champions.

Huge weekend lies ahead

The 7th and 8th grade girls will have a chance to secure a spot in the championship with wins tomorrow night. The games are back-to-back so come out and support both teams who have worked long and hard all season to get to this point.

Both teams are the number two seed and have beaten the teams they have played before. But in the playoffs, everything starts from scratch, so the girls should be primed and ready for battle.

Saturday morning, Derek will represent St. Mary's in the long toss competition at AT&T Park and the Giants game follows at 1:10 p.m. For those going, the tailgate party will be in Lot D starting at 11 a.m.

Come Sunday, the baseball team will play in their final game of the season.

Tommy strikes out career-high, team loses again

Tommy pitched his best ever tonight and struck out 10 in a little over three innings of work. But his defense didn't help him at all and committed 11 errors and the baseball team loses again 17-2.

Exclusive Sunday practice video

Playoff Schedule Released

The 7th and 8th grade girls will play back-to-back this Friday night at St. Emydius, with the 7th grade girls starting at 7 p.m. followed by the 8th grade at 8 p.m.

The 7th grade girls will face OLP, a team they beat 22-12 right after Spring Break. This is a championship rematch from last season.

The 8th grade girls will take on St. Peter Pacifica, who they defeated 13-9 in the first regular season game of the year.

Should be an exciting night of basketball so be there for this extravaganza.

SCHEDULE

7th grade girls - 7 p.m.
8th grade girls - 8 p.m.

Both games at St. Emydius

(255 Jules Ave)

What a weekend in sports

What an incredible few days for Bay Area sports fans.

In case you missed it, the Sharks beat the Red Wings last night to move on to the Western Conference Finals, the final four of hockey. And also today, A's Dallas Braden pitched a perfect game for the A's, which means he faced 27 batters and got all 27 batters out.

When's the last time our baseball team got 3 outs in a row, let alone 27? Check out the incredible highlights below if you haven't seen them already.

And if you are looking for the NBA playoffs...NOBODY CARES!

Saturday Recap: 3rd graders wrap up their season, Baseball team scores most runs this year but still loses

The youngest team in the school, the 3rd grade girls finished their rookie season this morning and lost 12-4.

They took a brief lead early on 2-0 on Miracle's two free-throws, but could not muster enough offense the rest of the way.

They did get up a lot more shots today than they have in previous outings but unfortunately it was still not enough.

It was a good first year and they were able to get experience, something that even the older grades didn't have when they were in 3rd grade. This should give them a nice little head start, building for the future.

BASEBALL TEAM DROPS ANOTHER ONE
Derek and Tommy both pitched some of their finest baseball this season, but a complete and utter disaster of a defense supported them.

8 errors by the infield alone contributed to pretty much all the runs scored by the other team on the afternoon. Sometimes the balls were routine grounders, and the fielder's fielded it, but had no idea what to do with the ball. It looked like some of them had never played baseball ever before and that's sad considering it's the sixth game of the season.

At the plate, batters were swinging in 3-0 counts, swinging at balls around their head and then taking strike three right down the middle. Others seemed to be completely lost at the plate as they swung at the ball weakly, even after the catcher caught the ball.

However, they did manage to score four runs, their highest output of the season. They loaded the bases in four of their five innings, but those egregious and ghastly at-bats were too much to overcome.

Currently, the team just doesn't seem to have pride. Certain individuals do, but as a team, not everybody is on board. Not every player hustles and not every player is focused. Baseball is such a mental game that the lack of focus is a killer. It's sad to see a team that can do so much better be relegated to game recaps where the final score can't even be posted.

They'll have two games to get it together to see if they can make something of this soon to be lost season.

BRIEFLY...Both Tiffany's were at the baseball game and Tiff Ye shot the baseball game.

7th grade girls lose to undefeated team, 4th/5th graders finish season

Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers, turnovers and more turnovers.

And when you turn the ball over more times than you have points, there's a good chance you will not win.

The 7th grade girls wrapped up their regular season with a 31-18 loss at the hands of undefeated first place Epiphany, the only team that has beaten them this season.

Epiphany made sure they would stop Marissa and they were able to contain her for most of the night. She was held to only two field-goals the entire game. She scored 10 points on the night, with 6 of them coming on free-throws.

Plain and simple, the girls could not take care of the ball. Each girl turned it over at least four or five teams. There were travelings, losing their dribble, bad lob passes and the one that boggles the mind the most -- the pass right to the other team.

Against a team as good as Epiphany, mistakes like that will come back to haunt you.

A shot by Amanda right before the end of the first half cut the lead to 13-7 and a bucket early in the third by Catharine cut the lead to 4. But that was as close as the girls would get the rest of the night.

Offensively, there were some point blank lay-ups that the girls missed, but they were never able to get into any rhythm because of the "t" word.

The girls finished the season (6-2) and have locked up second place in their division. They will play the number three seeded team.

Epiphany will most likely steam roll the fourth seeded team, whoever it is, so this could be a preview of a possible championship match-up. But before we even jump too far ahead of ourselves, the girls will need to fine tune their own game.

All five girls scored in the game.

4th/5th grade girls season comes to an end

The 4th/5th grade girls wrapped up their sophomore campaign with a loss. Isabella hit a buzzer-beater right before the end of the half and Tiffany hit a jump shot in the third quarter.

Papa-Paparazzi...What a crazy day

These are the days that make you wonder two things. What did I ever get myself into? And wow, isn't this the coolest job in the world?

What I did today made me ask myself both of these questions.

Today, I was scheduled to go to San Jose to interview a 17-year old professional soccer player from Gambia, and then return later in the afternoon to cover the two high school baseball playoff games in Golden Gate Park.

On our way back to San Francisco, the Raiders released Jamarcus Russell, the former No. 1 draft pick and one of the biggest busts in NFL history.

So what did we do? The cameraman and I went to stake out Russell's house, like those goons you see on TMZ harassing celebrities.

This was around 1 p.m. and we stood outside the house just waiting for something to happen. A car pulled up and one of his friend's came out and told us that Jamarcus has nothing to say, and in lighter terms, get the heck out of here.

We were on public property so we had the right to stay. His friend, wearing a wife-beater and jeans, with tattoos all over his arms repeated. Get the camera out of here, we have nothing.

And there we stood.

Maybe a half an hour later, a moving van came down the block and the people inside said hi to us. Turns out the driver was one of his cousins, and he agreed to find Russell for us. Russell wasn't even home, but his cousin got him on the phone. So we interviewed him on the phone. Watch this video below.



Click here for the RAW video.

As this interview was happening, the guy in the wife-beater was yelling at us telling us to "go away", and the interview as you saw was very brief. We ran back to the van just in case the guy in the beater was going to chase us down.

After feeding the video back to the station, we were told to go back to the house and stake it out. So the camera man and I basically waited there until 6 p.m. before we called it a day. The guy in the beater opened the door several times for the numerous people coming in and out of the house and repeatedly told us to just go away and that "Jamarcus is in Frisco."

Then when he opened the door again, he said something else that was not too kind that I can't print here.

It was hectic to say the least. We had people look at us like we were crazy, people swearing at us, people inside Russell's house peeking through the blinds to see if we were gone yet.

But that is all part of the job and this is something that I could not do every day. For work, it had to be done. But then again, how would you feel if you got fired and then you had a news crew outside your house waiting for you to say something?

Madness, I say. Absolute chaos.

So...how was your day?

Shorthanded and depleted 8th grade girls pull out gutsy victory

**Highlights below**

Tiffany was out with an ankle injury and didn't even suit up. Late in the third, Sally went flying hard onto the gym floor and banged her knee. And then seconds later Emily got smacked in the face with a ball and cut her lip.

Despite that, the 8th grade girls found a way, despite missing countless lay-ups, to grind out a 21-19 win in their final regular season game as St. Mary's students.

Sally scored 5 of her career-high 9 points in the fourth quarter and led the team in scoring, and Patricia scored the first two points of her career with a jump shot a minute into the game.

The girls clung to a two point lead and looked like they attempted to find new and different ways to lose the game, but the other team didn't cooperate as they weren't able to get any points off the 8th grade's mistakes.

With less than 10 seconds to play, the girls had three chances to inbound the ball and secure the win. But each time, the girls couldn't advance the ball mid-court -- the latest coming when Melinda handed the ball to Emily, a violation that results in losing the ball.

So with a little more than 3 seconds in the game, they had to defend and make sure the other team didn't score to force overtime, or even worse, hit a three and win the game. The ball was thrown inbound and it kicked around for a few seconds before the other team could get a shot off. And on that note, the girls officially became (7-1) for the season.

In their third year, they have looked the best. After seasons of (2-6) and (4-4), the girls dominated in half of their games, winning by double digits. And what's even better about their play this year is it's hard to spot one girl who is particularly playing better than the other.

Tonight's game was a perfect example as every girl got on the score sheet, and even when they weren't scoring, they were able to come up with some key steals and rebounds.

Their game will need to be fine tuned for the playoffs as every possession will be magnified. The girls will need to work hard in practice and bring their "A" game from here on out, so they can cap off their final few games at St. Mary's in style.

Happy Birthdays

Two birthdays to celebrate, first Marissa, whose birthday was Sunday -- a happy belated to her and then also Brendan, who celebrates his birthday today.

Saturday Recap: Shorthanded 4th/5th graders keep it close, 8th grade bounces back

The 8th grade girls bounced back from their loss last Saturday and grinded out a 20-9 victory in their penultimate regular season game.

Their defense and press were pretty solid throughout the game, limiting the other team to a lot of outside shots and creating turnovers. They had more than their share of missed lay-ups and easy shots but they made their shots when they needed to.

With one game left, the girls officially clinched a playoff spot and will want to win their last game to get the number two seed in their division.

Melinda added 6 points in the victory.

4th/5th grade girls picking it up on offense

Playing for the first time in their two year history without Cynthia, the 4th/5th graders put in a pretty solid effort. Unfortunately it was not enough as they ultimately lost by a score of 19-12.

The game went back and forth and the girls only trailed 10-8 at halftime. But some poor defensive coverage and the inability to get to the loose balls led to a lot of easy buckets by the other team.

Offensively, they did a lot better, getting off a lot of shots and most of their buckets were all results of some really good passing. Tiffany did a great job of finding Isabella on several occasions, and Isabella finished the game with a career-high 8 points.

But their inexperience and lack of basketball instinct caught up with them. A lot of times they are out of position and balls they should get to, they can't.

It also wouldn't hurt if they played with some more emotion. They need to be more aggressive and want the ball more than the opponent. Right now, it is not there.

They finish their season Friday night.

Baseball shutout
The baseball team was shutout 10-0 in their latest game.