Catharine says goodbye

I remember in 3^rd grade when we first got our basketball forms, and the girls would ask each other if they would join. 

The answer would always be, “I don’t know, are you going to?” The answer remained the same until Bryan first came into our room in 5^th grade. 

I was wondering, “Who is this guy?” I didn’t know until later, that “this guy” was going to be our athletic director til I would graduate.

When I first joined basketball in 5^th grade, one of my former teammates asked me to join because the team needed one more player to start having practices. When I went to the first practice, I kept wondering what we would do. I thought what we did was not what I saw on the NBA, but I didn’t know that the NBA was completely different from what we were doing.

We started practicing with Tim, our first coach. We kept practicing, and we began to get used to playing basketball. Our record in 5^th grade year was 3-5. Now, I think back, and wonder, if we had started playing basketball in 3^rd grade instead of 5^th grade, would we have been better players? We wouldn’t know, because we didn’t take the chance.

In 6^th grade, Bryan gave us the chance to join volleyball. I actually had an interest in playing volleyball, but I didn’t join. Why? Because I was scared that the ball was going to hit me or I would get injured or whatever. I just made excuses not to join. I did the same in 7^th grade.  Looking back, if I had joined volleyball, I would have tried my best to improve more so that this year, in 8^th grade, I could have at least contributed more in games. But I really am thankful for playing this year. It was fun, and I made some new friends from DeMarillac. We ended our first year in volleyball 3-5.

Our second year of basketball, I remember Bryan coming in our class asking for more girls to play. One girl had joined, but quit in the middle of the season. That really disappointed me because she improved so much from when she had began playing basketball. And, that year, Tim was not our coach anymore. Tiffanie, Marissa’s sister, was our coach, and Freddy was our assistant coach. In our 6^th grade year, our record was 5-3. I remember making my first two points in the last game of the 6^th grade season before playoffs and we won our playoff game 18-8. And then we won our championship 13-12 against OLP. Can you believe that? It was our second year playing basketball, and we won our championship by ONE point. That was one of the most AMAZING days of my life so far, and I will never forget it.

           

In 7^th grade, one of our usual teammates, who had played for two years, didn’t join. This put more stress for Bryan, and for us. Bryan spent his own time looking for another girl who would play on the team for us. Then, we found a girl who was a grade lower than us from Cornerstone, who attended Chinese school, to play with us. This year, Freddy was not our assistant coach anymore. James became our awesome coach, Tiffanie became our assistant coach, and we also had Lin Pei as our other assistant coach. We ended our season 6-2; in the playoffs, we beat OLP 27-12. In the championships, we beat NDV 22-10. I think that day was also completely AMAZING, and I’ll never forget it. That day, we made history, having won two championships in a row. Some teams dream of having just one championship, but we had TWO.

This year, our last and final year of St. Mary’s girl’s basketball, we had two more players than last year. They were from DMA (DeMarillac). In CYO, we had jumped TWO divisions from when we had started playing basketball. We were in division four. I was so excited this year to play. There was so much pressure on us, just because we had two championships in a row, did that mean we needed another one? Did people really expect us to have a three-peat? Although I’m sure that would have made everyone happy, it did not happen. We ended our season 5-3. Our playoff was on Friday, May 13, 2011. We were so excited, yet so nervous. We played against St. Brigid, who we beat in the regular season, but that didn’t mean that we would beat them in the playoffs. In fact, we lost, 27-20. But, after all we have done, we have reached this far.

I really want to thank the St. Mary’s Class of 2011 girls basketball and volleyball teams, especially my teammates, for playing with me through all this time. And, also, I want to thank Bryan, James, Tiffanie, Heather, Thomas, and my other former coaches for coaching us. I really appreciate how much time and effort you spent on us.

And now, after graduation, I just want to say that I love the Class of 2011 & our teams. :]