The dream of a perfect season went up in flames Friday night as the 8th grade girls lost for the first time all season long, 21-16 in the championship.
All season long, the 8th grade defeated teams by large margins, winning all games but one by double digits -- their closest margin of victory was 8 points.
But tonight was a different story as the other team came out firing on all cylinders in the 1st quarter, and the 8th graders trailed 10-4 after one.
In the 2nd quarter, the play started tilting back in favor of the 8th graders who scored 5 points to make it a 10-9 game going into halftime.
When the two teams met during the regular season, the 8th graders beat tonight's opponent by 19 and 12, so there might have been a sense of entitlement the girls were feeling.
It also helped in their previous two encounters they had Sabrina, who missed tonight's game. She was the team's best rebounder, and the lack of her presence tonight was felt.
The other team was bigger and controlled the boards, and got a lot of second chance opportunities. Off of that, they were able to score.
So with only 5 girls, the 8th grade did as much as they could but in the end, it just wasn't enough.
They actually took a lead in the third quarter and led briefly 11-10, but quickly found themselves down again heading into the fourth.
Trailing 16-11, the 8th grade scored back-to-back buckets to get within one, and even had a chance to take the lead. But a missed lay-up and two quick scores by the other team pretty much sealed the 8th grade's fate to second place.
Towards the end of the year, the 8th grade wasn't at their best. They had games where they seemed to be on cruise control, not doing the things they did early in the season that got them where they were.
They left their guard down and had to pay the ultimate price in a championship loss.
At the end of the day, there are a lot of should've, would've and could'ves.
The entire year, this team practiced with a full six players no more than a handful of times. Their team chemistry and rapport with each other was never even close to where it could've and should've been.
Their effort Friday night was where it should've been, but because of the inconsistent practices, they lacked execution.
One bright spot the team had this season was Lili, who was the only St. Mary's student to ever play basketball in her class.
With a chance to play basketball from the 4th grade on, Lili became the first girl in the class of 2012 to sign up and actually play basketball.
It was very brave of her to come onto a team where she didn't know anybody and play as hard as she did.
It was an unfortunate way to end the season for the girls, and sometimes the lessons learned through losing are far greater than through winning.
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