A Tough Pill to Swallow

Pull-up J. My favorite.

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  Last week we stole one. This week we gave one away. The ups and downs of basketball I guess. After a come from behind win against rival Calais last week, my team had its second 'derby' game in as many weeks. This time we were matched up against Armentières, a team located just outside of Lille, about 40 minutes from Dunkerque.

   Armentières was a perfect 4-0 coming into the game, so it gave us a great opportunity to pull off a big win. A rivalry game at home, against an undefeated team. Nothing better.

  I had extra reason to be excited because a fellow Buff, Anna Nedovic, also happened to play for Armentières. Anna played at Colorado like I did. And even though we never suited up together, we had become good friends during the summers in Boulder. It had been several years since I had seen Anna, so I was looking forward to seeing her. And it's always fun to square off against a familiar face!

Got her on the lob.

  The game got underway, and we slowly took a lead. While we were playing well, my feeling was that would should have been leading by more. You know how you feel like you're playing well, but you look up at the scoreboard and you're only leading by 7? That's how I felt. I wanted to push the lead above double digits, and get a comfortable lead. But for whatever reason, we didn't quite have the focus and fire to make it happen.

Looking to make a play.

  Even with that being said, we DID have a 10 point lead when the 4th quarter opened. But at the five-minute mark, apparently we thought we had the game in the bag because we quit playing. We continually turned the ball over, and put Armentières on the free throw for the rest of the game. In the last five minutes we didn't score a single point, and lost the game by 4. Brutal, isn't it?!?

  Those are the kind of games you wish to have back. Or you at least want those last 5 minutes back. For me, losing is losing. Whether it's by 2, or by 30, it's a terrible feeling. But I think losing the way we did on Saturday is the worst way to lose a game. We had the win in our back pocket, and we failed to put it away. So now we have to learn from the mistakes we made, and make sure they don't happen again.

Frustration.

  As ugly as it will be, I'm sure we'll watch the video of the last quarter and see what we could have done differently. And hopefully we can become a better team because of it! Saturday's loss definitely put a bitter taste in my mouth. But the only way to remove that bitterness is to get back on the court and continue to work!


  ~ Sabrina