change is here

tonight is my last home basketball game.

basketball has been such a huge part of my life since i was 11 years old. i cant imagine what my life is going to be like without it. without practices, games, a team! i am having a hard time comprehending just how it is going to be or how it is going to feel.

i have so many awesome memories from the sport! my first season ever playing we were 0-14 lol most of us had just begun playing and none of us were any good. but our next year we had great improvement, being 9-5! that season of 6th grade i had a game high of 29 points, when our team won 36-32. i still have a yellow note pad where i wrote out all my points and the records from that year. i scored almost 300 points as a 6th grader. we had fun plays called Nsync, Lobster, Boys---its so funny thinking back. and those plays always worked!

after that it was off to middle school, where as a 7th grader me gabrielle and aislinn were pulled up to the 9th grade team. i remember doing 2 on none constantly and foul shots/sprints in the old middle school gym that had a slippery floor and horrible lighting. the next two years i played on this team, and that is when we really starting meshing and playing well together. gabrielle's dad was the coach and was a great one. in the off seasons, we played for him under his AAU team called Chickie's Rock. we met a lot of girls from the other schools in our league that became friends to this day and we learned even more. it was at those practices that i was taught the up and under move that became to my friend janelle's deadly weapon in her career, except when she played us :)

then high school came. my 9th grade year i played both JV and varsity, totaling in 46 games. i was starting varsity and jv and playing most of both games. 10th and 11th was all varsity. my senior year was very special because the 6 of us were all so close. my best friend gabrielle and i played so well together and always knew where we were on the court. it was the first year that we made it to districts in 4 years and we worked hard but most importantly had fun.

the summer before that year i played in various shootouts, but it was the the gettysburg one that coach henry from lyco saw me play at. after that, it was a regular sunday night thing talking to him on the phone. coach ditzler came to my holiday tournament, where we beat CV in OT. I was named the tournament MVP and thats when i am pretty sure ditzler knew that she had a good player coming in.

freshmen year i started here at lyco and have ever since. ups and downs occurred as usual but my overall experience has been great and i have earned a lot of respect in the conference. i have made some of the best friends i'll probably ever have and i have been able to play a sport that i love so much and that has taught me everything about myself and others.

basketball has enriched my life in many ways and to see it come to end breaks my heart. but like all good things they must come to an end. tonight is almost that ending. our last game is saturday...after that, it's good-bye basketball. i honestly don't know where the time went or how it went by so fast but it has.

it certainly is *bittersweet*.