Silver Bracket Champions

In a previous post, I shared some updates and photos from Kaitlynn's first winter season with Katy Youth Basketball. Her team, the 5th-6th grade Bears, only won 1 game during the regular season schedule which was disappointing for the team. Their last game was especially disappointing, because they were truly hoping to pull out one more win. Despite the tough season, we really enjoyed watching Kaitlynn grow into her role on the team. She was contributing quite a bit more on both offense and defense as compared to the beginning of the season.

Despite their losing record, the Bears were set to compete in the KYB Silver Bracket tournament during the week of playoffs in late February. The girls were excited to play at least once more together, because they were finally hitting their stride as a team. It was a Tuesday evening, and the girls had a lot of nervous energy to burn.

As the game was underway, our girls were playing GREAT! They were making baskets that they normally had not made throughout the season, and their defense was unstoppable. Kaitlynn was a great contributor and was really showing incredible improvement. To the girls' great excitement, they WON the game and therefore advanced to the next round which would be played in 2 days. Their coaches were so proud of the girls!

For the semi-championship round, the entire team was in attendance on a Thursday evening and they were all pumped up for the game. We were playing a team that had easily beat us in the regular season, so I'm not sure how high their hopes were for winning the game. But as the game began, it became clear that our Bears had showed up READY to play tough! Kaitlynn, in particular, was playing a tremendous role on defense and handled the ball better than ever before. These girls were ON FIRE and really playing as a team. That did the trick, because they won the game to advance to the championship! Woohoo! The coolest part of all, however, was when Coach Jeremy gave his closing remarks to the team. As he was praising the girls for their strong performance on defense, he looked at Kaitlynn and said, "Kaitlynn won the game for us in the 3rd quarter!"

2 days later, the girls were beyond excited to play for the championship in the KYB Silver Bracket tournament. Before the game, the girls were introduced by one of the game officials. Coach Jeremy had given each player a funny nickname for their introduction. Our #24 was first to be introduced as "Number 24, Kaitlynn the Energizer Bunny Courtright." Ha!

I will admit, our girls were a bit intimidated by their opponents who also happened to be another Bears team. (The other Bears players wore red vests on the court.) Their opponents were very tall and quite aggressive players, but our girls continued the incredible teamwork that they had developed over the course of the week in the tournament games. Our offense made some great baskets, and our defense continued the incredible performance of the previous 2 games. In the end, our Bears won by quite a large margin. It was awesome! The girls were so excited to have earned their gold medals - they were officially the 5th-6th grade KYB Silver Bracket Champions!

What a fun ending to a long and sometimes tough season! Kaitlynn grew a tremendous amount as a player and she really learned some hard lessons along the way. After one particularly tough practice earlier in the season, she had been ready to quit playing basketball altogether. Her perseverance and hard work paid off in a big way, because Coach Joe announced that she was the most improved player of the team. We are so proud of our Bear cub! It was truly enjoyable to watch her play and grow in her skills, and we're so thankful for the special friendships that she formed along the way. Go Bears!