3rd Grade

If I had to provide a name for this newsletter.....I'd call it "TEN!!". Why?......because our team, on a scale from 1-10, had a "10" when it came to having fun and learning from our experiences! In Division 1, our 3rd grade Dawgs played very well and I cannot express in words well enough about how proud I am of our team. We placed third in this huge tournament and we played well enough that we could have been in a championship game. 3rd place is a huge success for our team and was a challenge to accomplish. We played in the highest division and played some very elite teams providing great competition to every team. As you can imagine, with such a young team, it was also our first out of state tournament....or, even out of Rocklin area: )

We played our first game at 8 am on Saturday. Our first game was a huge win against a well coached team from the state of Idaho, Hoop Dreams. Our Dawgs started and ended with a strong effort on both offense and defense winning the game 53-7. That is not a typo....our Dawgs were awesome!! Our full court press was intense and on fire with a great team effort from EVERY Dawg on the court. If I had to call the local fire department, they would have trouble putting out the Dawgs' intense fire. Our boys were just too fast for Hoop Dreams on the full court press. Later, we dropped back into a half court defense and, once again, our Dawgs kept intense pressure on defense, blocked out very well, and used great anticipation to get steals. Offensively, I couldn't ask for a better game from the Dawgs. Every player contributed by aggressively driving to the basket often using a head fake or jab step. It was delightful to see the boys using their skills in their first game! I was ready to melt from seeing ALL of our Dawgs running the offense well and fighting for good shots. Again, we hit the boards hard and out rebounded if we missed a shot. Our Dawgs were relentless in all areas of the game. We were off to a strong start and really looked forward to our next game later that afternoon......so much that I learned a good lesson.

Our second game was against Spirit Got Game from good ol' Sacramento. I learned a lesson, but only after we played this game against Spirit. Since we had such huge amount of time between our first game (8 am) and our second game (4:45 pm) on Saturday, some of our Dawgs went swimming.........for several hours. I will take responsibility for not realizing that we should have rested a little more instead, but our Dawgs did have fun. We were told that we were playing the "B" Spirit team. We had already successfully defeated the "A" team in a HW Palace tournament earlier in the season. Our Dawgs played well, but our fire was not intense like our previous game and eventually Spirit took advantage of that. We lost to a well coached team with very fast players that were not showing that they were tired on offense or defense. Our coaches are very confident that we should have defeated Spirit Got Game and we really do think the opportunity is coming soon. No excuses....we lost fair and square to a really good team. Our Dawgs gave it their best shot.

The 3rd game of our tournament was on Sunday. It was our only game for that day and our boys rested well this time. We played a very elite and strong team, the Yellow Jackets from Elk Grove. Going into this game, we had known that the Yellow Jackets had already blown out Spirit Got Game the previous day. We knew that we would have our hands full and we would have to take our best "A" game to them........and that's exactly what we did!!!! If I had to lose a game, I would want to lose it the way that we played this team. Our Dawgs played a great game and proved that we deserved to be placed in division 1 with the elite teams. Head Coach Tran from the Yellow Jackets had previously taken one of his 4th grade teams to win the National Championship in Florida and were ranked #1 in the country as a 4th grade team. We played his awesome 3rd grade team, however. Coach Tran mentioned great things about our team and was surprised that we had lost to Spirit Got Game. Coach Tran mentioned that we were the best team that he had played in the tournament at that point. Although we lost by 16, don't let that fool you. We almost evenly matched the Yellow Jackets with layups, outside shots, rebounds, steals, hustle, ball handling, stamina, desire, fire, and team effort.........but we lacked in our free throws in comparison to the Yellow Jackets. Our team missed 19 of the 24 free throws. Guess what?..........free throws really are important! No, we probably would not have hit 100%, but anything close to that would have allowed us to defeat an elite team. Regardless of the final outcome of this game, there is no doubt that our BIG Dawgs, coaches, and parents felt great after the game. A win would have been nice, but the experience was definitely a great one.

Our last and final game was Monday morning at the wonderful, bright and early........8 am again (arrival time at 7:30). We played a team from the bay area, the Oakland Rebels. Our Dawgs were still pumped up after their previous game. Their confidence was enormous and it showed in this game. Every Dawg gave a great effort once again keeping their fire to help gain another big "W" in this game. The Oakland Rebels were no match for our stronger and faster Dawg team. We scored, then scored, then scored, then never looked back. After our win and after the other teams in our division 1 completed their games, we were placed 3rd in the tournament......... but I really think that our BIG Little Dawgs ARE the champions of this Reno tournament!

Coach Martinez