The Goal Post

$15,300 and counting! That's how much this great gaggle of girls has raised thus far for the Fort Campbell Wounded Warriors Batallion. Simply Amazing!!!

Greetings, Basketball Fans

Welcome to the official blogging site of the Full Package 7th Grade Girls Elite basketball team:

• Abby Dein
• Catherine Fiorito
• Haley Greer
• Maddie Kaelber
• Becky Koch
• Kelly Johnson
• Amanda Kowalski
• Becca Napoli
• Liz Satter
• Maddie Welter
• Sammie Woodward
• Coach Rick Kolsky

We live and train in the Golden Triangle between Evanston and Cary, IL and Racine, WI. We have been playing together since March, beating teams from 6 states thus far, while scoring over 1,400 points. We have dedicated our season to the Warrior Transition Unit of Fort Campbell in Clarksville, TN, home to the AAU Girls Basketball 7th Grade National Championships. For more details on our mission, see http://newssun.suntimes.com/sports/6299237-419/hoops-by-heroes-for-heroes.html.

Please, join us on the Last Train To (and Home From) Clarksville, where we hope to return with a National Championship in hand on July 15th. And, stay tuned for daily updates on our progress.

Loose Balls: On The Road

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. The coaches had some fun digitally capturing the roadside pleasures of Clarkesville, TN.

1. OK, What is "Adult" Dentistry?
2. Social club and Surgi-Center?
3. Saturday night's special op's outings?
4. Church of the Divided Highway
5. LSU icons don't do well in Vol-land
6. Wrecked Partnership?
7. Truding's Highlander hits a milestone
8. Meet at Allen's for the 4th of July celebration
9. Interesting synergy and cross-selling opportunity for the 4th barbecue
10. Highway Invasion
11. Full Package Elite's Latest FundRaiser
12. Sunday brunch Tacos
13. Loading up on gear
14. Glitz, Glamour, and Gaskets
15. Recker Movers--Don't forget the insurance
16. Rick's Automotive--Coach buys a business between games
17. Got Scrap?--Then Come Watch British Futbol matches at Hooligan's Bar...leave your toupe at the door and don't forget your cricket bat
18. Tough Night Out Choices--Truding entered the talent contest while Rick sang "With a Little Help From My Friends"
19. Laundry and Rolexes--Wash the clothes before you try to pawn them

1. 
   

A Fury-ous Ending

We needed one more win to make it to the final day of the tournament, and faced a formidable opponent in the oversized Fury, with a smooth 6'3" post player and scrappy full court pressure. The team entered the gym thru a cheering parent tunnel, who clearly pumped them up. We started out strong, jumping to a 6-1 lead on two quick steals and treys, sending the big girl to the bench. We played a very tough first half, entering the locker room with a one point lead, but ran out of gas, allowing the Fury to score far too many second chance points. The girls played hard, worked as a team, creating lots of great looks on offense, but we simply missed easy jump shots we normally make. Many a tear was shed as the girls realized their noble crusade of a season was over. However, being 12- and 13-year-olds, they were soon smiling and making each other laugh, as they also realized they had made great friends for life and dun' real good.

Taking Flight (To the Cleaners)

Believe it or not, Sammie's dad, Curt, flew down to Tennessee for ONE game, our match with the big, pressing, and aggressive Tennessee Fury on Thursday morning. We needed to win to move on to the next round and another night in Clarksville. The girls didn't disappoint Mr. Woodward, playing perhaps their best game of the season. Early in the game, our top scorer, Madie K, dove for a loose ball and got her head gripped in a vise of Fury legs, and having to leave the game early and ice a very sore neck. This seemed to set the girls on fire, as they buried the Fury with a suffocating full-court press on defense, and flawless execution of our pressbreaker on offense, winning by almost 20, fighting off three runs in the second half, and not backing down when the Fury started pushing and shoving out of frustration. Liz, Kelly, and Cat dominated the boards and made some big baskets down low, Becca and Becky handled the ball with great care and court vision, Amanda and Haley attacked the basket, Madie K battled bravely thru the pain, Maddie W shot the lights out, and Sammie hit 3s, runners, and teammates to make her dad's trip more than worth it.

Loose Balls: Card Sharks

At times between games or during meals, we always bring a couple deck of cards. We play a game called Egyptian Rat Killer... the name speaks for itself. It is a very addicting game and one of the girls on our team, Haley, decides to go all out in this one game, and it gets pretty scary playing with her. She has amazing reflexes and wins every slap, but when she doesn't win it, she begins to basically pull out her hair which forms a bald spot. Others, Kelly/Liz, are not as talented at this game. Sometimes, we wish we were as good at playing basketball as we are at playing cards.

Loose Balls: Volume I

This is the first of what we hope are many posts, where the girls, parents, and coaches share their favorite anecdotes from our Clarksville road trip.

TWO LIVE JEWS:

Coaches Truding and Kolsky made a red-eye drive down from Navy Pier in Chicago to our hotel in Hopkinsville, KY, from 10pm Saturday night to 5am Sunday morning, downing a box of oreos, three bags of peanuts, and 4 diet cokes, and making only one pit stop for gas (both to fill the tank and release toxic fumes from too many nuts, cookies, and soda). Believe it or not, the Tournament's only Jewish coaching tandem picked a petrol station in Christian County, Kentucky at 3:30am. After paying, as we were about to get back in the car, a couple of oversized and undertoothed locals with a fascinating collection of tatoos called out to us, "Are you guys brothers," a major insult to Matt (who refers to Rick as a Jewish grandma'). We smiled and replied in the negative, to which they responded, "Because you have the same nose," yet another swipe at Truding's ego. Recognizing that this could be a thinly veiled outing of our religious heritage and that our new friends most likely had a wide variety of readily available firearms in their vehicle, we smiled sweetly, and decided NOT to respond, "Are you girls sisters, because you're both humongous and go to the same blind tatoo artist?"

A LIttle Consolation

IN our opening game of the Championship bracket, we faced the undefeated Swish from Cincinnati. We jumped out to a quick 6-1 lead on a couple of 3s and a steal, then played hard to lead by 1 at half-time. However, our shots just wouldn't drop, and mental lapses on our press-breaker and half-court defense cost us dearly, as we lost a heartbreaker. Bad News: No Sweet Sixteen as we head to the Consolation wing of the Championship bracket. Good News: We have a full day to recover before our noon game Thursday (other than a practice tonight at 5 to regroup:-).

Our Heroes

By far, the highlight for our team, our families, and ANY team at this tournament was our afternoon with the Warrior Transition Batallion at Fort Campbell. Ann Satter arranged a life-changing experience for the girls, which made the front page of Wednesday's Clarksville newspaper (http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20110713/NEWS01/107130344/13-year-old-girls-playing-AAU-raise-13K-wounded-soldiers?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE). We began our visit with a tour of the PT/OT facilities by recovered SFC Landon Ranker, who also shared with us a video of the Warrior Olympic Games, where he has won a couple of swimming medals. Most inspirational was a story about a vet who was blinded in battle, lost both legs because of surgery complications, and competes in biathlons. Somehow, our two losses seemed pretty insignificant at this point.

We then went to the Middle School, where we played a friendly game of hoops against a group of women soldiers where we were cheered on by around 100 other soldiers, many of them from the Wounded Warriors batallion. Following the game, we presented our donor scroll along with a check for almost $14,000 to the Unit. The Unit's COmmander, Chris Jarvis, not only tossed the jump ball, but thanked the girls and provided sage counsel and life perspective with a very personal and motivating 10-minute speech, choking up a couple of times, while claiming he was wiping away sweat. WOW!!!

Georgia on Our Minds

We faced our strongest opponent and played our best game of the tournament this afternoon, but came up short against the Georgia Metros, a tall, strong, skilled and athletic team, from the club that gave us Maya Moore, two time NCAA player of the year at UConn. We started out playing worried and intimidated, falling behind by 13 points in the first quarter, before waking up and realizing that we are just as good as anyone at this tournament, as long as we play tough and play OUR game. Hard-nosed defense and quick passes frustrated the Metros and put us right back in the game, as we scratched and clawed our way back to a 41-40 lead, before we ran out of gas and lost by 7, in part because we missed 5 open layups and shot 9-24 from the foul line including missing the front-end of 3 1-and-1s. OUCH!

Haley showed no fear driving hard to the basket and breaking the press, Becky and Becca shut down their two leading scorers, Goose and the Maddies jumpers gave us a SHOT in the arm early and late, Liz ripped some HUGE rebounds, Kelly went hard to the hole, Sammy hit some sweet runners, Cat grabbed big rebounds. After surviving the initial ambush, we played like Warriors, and made our program proud, but the best part of the day was yet to come.

Border War Lost

Our hoop heroes faced a cross-border rival, the Indiana Elite for another 9am start, and we never really seemed to wake up. We just weren't hungry enough and dropped a tough game by 4 points, blowing a 9 point lead. We hope to pull it together in time for a tough match against the undefeated Georgia Metros.

Sparks Plugged by Lights Out Shooting

In game two, the girls put on an exhibition as they hit nine 3-pointers, built a 27-point half-time lead, and cruised to a lopsided victory over the Maryland Lady Sparks. Amanda, the two Maddies, and Becca drained the treys, while Kelly and Liz cleaned up inside, Sammy dished and dealt, Haley trapped girls to tears, Cat scratched out offensive boards, and Becky stripped more girls than Hugh Hefner. These girls are simply amazing and are looking forward to an encore performance tomorrow in the last two games of pool play. Stay tuned.

No Blood, 1-0 vs. Glory

Up at the crack of dawn for our 9am opening game against Team Tennessee Glory from Memphis. We built a 17-point lead by the middle of the third quarter, with tenacious full court pressure; then coasted for a 51-46 victory as we conserved energy for our 1:30 pm game against the Maryland Lady Sparks. 1 down, 8 to go:-). Highlights included 5 steals by Becky, a great drive and dish by Cat, sweet stroke trey by MadieK, step-in help defense by Becca, hard finishes by Kelly, hard cutting drives by Goose, quick outlets by Liz, hard-driving layups by Sammie, and quick-release jumpers by MaddieW and Haley. All followed by a post-game interview and photo session with the local press. Check out ClarskvilleNow.com later tonight for coverage.

Stay tuned...

Terry Cloth and SkyDiving

Sunday's Opening Ceremony was very special for the girls and the other 100 teams at the AAU 7th Grade Girls National Championships. After a pin exchange among the athlete in the Dunn Center at Austin Peay University, each of the teams marched, Olympics Style, onto the track at the football stadium weathering the 117 degree heat index, carrying banners, and wallowing in the cheers of friends and family. The two highlights of the parade and ceremony were a Maverick and a couple of high flyers. The stands rose and applauded as the Lady Jets from Texas strode down the track in their white silk Armani long-sleeve, full-length warm-ups (yes, I DID say 117 degree heat index), as their coach, Jason Terry of the NBA champ Mavs, strutted to the adoring crowd. However, unlike the other 90+ teams, Jason and the Lady Jets continued marching out of the stadium, skipping the rest of the ceremony, and upgrading from elite to elitist. And, they missed quite a show from two members of the local Airborne Unit, who sky-dove down from 13,000 feet and landed at midfield, to the delight of the crowd. What a great way to start the experience, especially for our girls, who are here to celebrate our Wounded Warriors.