CHURCHIE BASKETBALL USA TOUR 2015

Junior Varsity vs Grapevine Faith High School Match Report:

The mood in the locker room before hand was energetic and somber. A strange combination but everyone was pumped to get a W but it was also our last game of the tour. After such brilliant experiences, everyone was keen to come out and wrap up our tour in style with an excellent game.

Tommy Grant breasted again with 22 points and 11 rebounds. His inside presence has been critical the entirety of the tour and this game was no different. Zac Laird came up with an amazing 6 steals and made great decisions with the ball all game; his lock down defense on #32 who was lighting up the 3's was also absolutely superb. Boston Freestone had 6 offensive rebounds in this game but his total for all the games played would be in the high 30's that's how good boston has been on the O boards. His work down low and defensively tonight, blocking several shots, has been an integral part of our success. Patty Gibney played hard as usual, coming up with 5 steals and 9 rebounds, complimented by his 4 points which does not reflect his impact tonight or this whole tour. Unfortunately, Patty also had another very good block where he smashed another layup attempt into the backboard. This is bad because we all know that Patty will press hard for his 2 blocks to be the highlights of the tour. Anthony White played strong, tough and passive as always tonight, locking down on defense and digging deep. He Initiated the half court offense excellently as always and his smart plays have been crucial this whole tour. Andrew Adams saved his best game for last by making some equisite plays in the half court offense and staying calm whenever the play broke down. His on ball defense has also been consistently awesome and tonight was no exception. Dylan Evans ran the lanes hard and was vocal on defense which has been terrific this tour. Nick Davis brought lights out shooting and chipped in some great patches of defense. Being our stretch 4 man, Nick has been an outside threat this whole tour and he has played well for us. Last but not least, KB. KB was easily best on court tonight because of his 100% effort but also his excellent defensive work to steal several passes and his offensive class tonight with a big 8 points off the bench on 4-5 shooting. This might not seem like a lot of points but each basket was made off a silky smooth play I assure you.

We ended up winning the game 50-38 but it was hard fought until the end as we had to scrap in the last few minutes of the game. We played hard together and we executed in a way that we were happy with as a team which was one of our main goals on this tour.

Karl has been absolutely magnificent all tour long and we have all been very fortunate to play under Karl for this trip. His guidance and his basketball information that he brings to the table has been invaluable for us and we cannot thank him enough. Mitch was our main assistant for the first leg of the tour until Chewie stepped in and provided an equally terrific job to us with both of them offering us their basketball insight which we were able to always utilize.

This tour has been a pleasure to be on and on behalf of the team, I would like to thank Karl, Mitch and Chewie for all they did for us. It was great fun to be over here playing these American teams but we wouldn't have got here without the parents so thank you to all reading this back home.

It's been great fun for me when I've written these reports and I hope everyone back home enjoyed them.

For the last time:
Yours truly,
Ben Krieger