Tuesday morning quarterback

Monday morning quarterback (Tuesday edition)

One who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of hindsight

The Giants bus arriving at AT&T Park Sunday.

What an insane weekend it was in the world of St. Mary's and professional sports, probably more so in the latter than the former.

How many of you were about to throw up or crap your pants Saturday night as the Giants closed out the Phillies? Or did you not even watch the game cause you were too busy doing homework, or studying, or at a concert with 27 other people?

Nevertheless, the Giants are National League Champions for the first time since 2002 and will start Game one of the World Series tomorrow night against the American League Champions, the Texas Rangers.

The Giants mania around the Bay Area is pure madness. Last night, I waited 20 minutes just to get inside a Giants Dugout to look for some stuff, and when I get in there, absolutely nothing left. Just janky t-shirts and all the good stuff was gone. Everywhere you turn there is someone wearing something Giants. It's a great energy for the entire city and area. And I think this baseball fever should translate to more interest in not only playing baseball come springtime, but watching it for years to come.

Now onto our weekend that was, as the soccer teams went undefeated.

VOLLEYBALL
Good for the 5th/6th grade girls. Not exactly as great of a moment as it was last year when they won their first game, but the younger volleyball team picked up win number one Saturday morning. The secret was the serve. They were able to consistently serve the ball over and therefore won the game -- that's half the battle.

Winning gives players confidence and I hope that this win did just that. They have three more games left in the season and the team will shoot for a better record than last year. They can do it with just one more win.

8TH GRADE VOLLEYBALL
Who saw this coming? After winning their first game of the year, which was also the first game they ever played together as a team, who would've thunk it that they'd go on this five game losing streak?

This division is tough. In over the two plus years I've been watching 8th grade volleyball, this is by far the best competition any of the teams' have played. If this current team played in the 8th grade division last year or even the year before, their record would be a lot better. Unfortunately, the luck of the draw wasn't in the stack of cards for this year's team.

Their two more winnable games came when Marissa was out. Even with Marissa back, these last two opponents have been pretty tough and the girls are just too inexperienced to dethrone girls who have played since third grade.


But, two more games left in the season, let's see what they can make of it.


ALUMNI UPDATE
As we approach basketball season, so do the high schools and here are a few feel good stories, or in some cases, just stories, of graduates who have made it to their respective high school teams. Derek becomes the only graduate of his class to make it to a basketball team, he'll be playing for Lowell's JV squad. And after being on JV last season, Vivian and Shari, graduates in the class of 2009 cracked the Varsity team for Galileo. Congratulations to the three of them for their accomplishments thus far.

I am in the process of setting up a volleyball and soccer alumni game -- more details will follow in the upcoming weeks.