The Week That Was January 25 - January 31, 2016

One of my big fears after doing this job for over two decades is the inevitable post big game let down. That's what was on my mind last week. I get through Homecoming or Basketball Bash and I start thinking I got life licked. And then something stupid happens. Yeah, I am paranoid. Luckily my paranoia led to a pretty good week for our teams.

New American Flag in our gym courtesy of the Athletic Council

Our teams returned to action on January 25th with the Middle School boys teams heading to Chiaravalle School in Evanston. We have added playing Chiaravalle this year because they are close to us. With a Middle School schedule that now dismisses at 3:15, we are trying to get some closer schools on the schedule. Now if the buses would only cooperate. Once again the Middle School Boys were jinxed by the late bus virus. We are fortunate to have coaches who are adaptable and actually lucky we were missing a few players due to the Middle School play. Thus we are able to transfer over to the mini-buses and got them to Evanston only a little late. The White team won and the short handed Purple team lost but all and all a good outing.

JV Girls also went to Evanston to play Beacon Academy at McGaw YMCA. Remember this is really Beacon's Varsity as they do not have juniors and seniors at their school yet. Our team played a close game again but lost.

The most exciting game on Monday was at home when our Fresh/ Soph boys team played Luther North. This is one of the few home contests I had to miss this January, but it came down to the wire with Freshman Phillip Hoffman hitting the go ahead basket to put the Raiders up for good and give us a 51-50 nail biter win. Overall we were 2-2 for Monday.

Tuesday was the big game of the week at North Shore. The Varsity and JV Boys Basketball teams played Latin at home. Over my years at North Shore, Latin has defeated us in boys basketball a lot more than we have beaten them. Their Head Varsity Coach Dave VanderMeulen has also been the Head coach as long as I have been at North Shore. So I know their teams will be well prepared. Over the last 5 years the games have been much more even. But still Latin usually beats us. They had beaten us at Latin earlier in the season. Tuesday's games started quite close. But in both the JV and Varsity games our team pulled away at the end. They were great games in which both teams played well. The Varsity Score was North Shore 55 Latin 48.

On Tuesday, the JV girls also went to Francis Parker. This is another game where our JV is basically playing a schools varsity squad. Francis Parker has struggled the last couple of years keeping girls out for basketball. The league agreed they could play a JV schedule. That made it a little tougher for our JV as Parker does have one or two strong players. But the game was close with Parker pulling away at the end. We hope Parker will have a Varsity team next year. For Tuesday, our teams went 2-1 and we were 4-3 on the week.

Wednesday was an odd day off for us in January. The Middle School Arts Festival -- dance, play, music -- let us take a break.

Thursday our teams returned for three more games. The Middle School girls went to Roycemore and won. Our Varsity girls had a strong performance vs. Rochelle Zell Jewish High School -- formerly known as Chicagoland Jewish High School. They won at home 47-36. Then our Fresh / Soph boys played another tight game but lost this time to Cristo Rey St. Martin 34-29. We went 2-1 for Thursday and 6-4 for the week.

The streak of January games ended on Friday. We were supposed to finish with 67 games for the month but ended with 66. Lake Forest Academy and our Varsity girls decided late to cancel their game. Both teams were missing players and tired. So only our JV girls played at LFA and after two close losses this week had a big win. At home the Varsity boys played Morgan Park Academy. It was a strange afternoon. Maybe it had just been a long month and everyone was tired. The game was quite tight. Morgan Park has two excellent players who gave us problems early. Sadly one of our players while going up for a rebound came down on the leg of an MPA player. It was clearly a bad injury to the MPA player. He had to be carried from the court. The injury changed the tone of the game and the Raiders pulled away to a 72-56 victory. That left us 2-0 for the day and 8-4 for the week.

January ends with Raider Basketball teams going 36-30. Despite ending on a sad note with this tough injury, I am very pleased overall. We had a busy month. But our teams competed hard and there was a lot of growth. I feel so fortunate to have our kids served by great coaches and support people like Kristen Allen who so carefully and thoughtfully cared for the injured MPA athlete. I started this post by writing about my worries. They are usually whether the bus will show up on time. Whether the games will be even. Whether we will have quality officials. Even whether the building or floor will be clean. Those are important concerns. But I am glad I rarely have to worry about our own people who serve our teams and our guests so well. Getting through a month of 66 basketball games takes great people, and I appreciate and am thankful today -- this first day of February -- for their efforts.