ICS Basketball Tournament

Each year the day after Jen and I pick our varsity girls basketball team we head off on the road to Aiglon to play in our first basketball tournament. With this each year is a little surprise as to how we will perform, how the girls will hold up, and mainly how well they adapt to not having a single play against teams who are at the end of their seasons.

This year was great! During tryouts Jen and I kept saying to each other, these girls are really athletic. They really know how to move without the ball, this tournament could be a lot of fun. Then on a totally different note, we were really excited because it is our favorite tournament because of where we stay and how it kicks off our season on a very positive note.

We drove into the mountains on Friday night and stop at the base of a mountain. At this point we have to unload the bus of all of our bags and this year enough food to cook 3 meals. The place we stay is a rather large old home that consists of multiple floors of dorm style rooms, an attic where all of our girls were this year with rows of beds under the dormers, and a common area with a kitchen.

On Saturday morning, Jen and I wake up bright and early and make our breakfast. This year we got a little fancy and feasted on egg sandwiches. Then the girls start to stumble down stairs and we put them to work make a team breakfast of eggs and toast for 14. They really get into it taking different jobs of cracking eggs, making the toast, buttering the toast, cooking the eggs or dishwashers or driers. It is really amazing to watch a group of girls who have just been thrown together 24 hours before as a team and how they come together so quickly.

After breakfast and clean-up we got in a game of apples to apples which is a word association game. A very amusing interaction among the girls with the majority of them only understanding about half of the vocabulary and the jokes that were being made among some of our native English speakers.

Then comes the team picture out on the balcony of the hostel. A tradition Jen and I value and usually becomes our team picture for the year. This year the skies were not as blue but the beauty was still there.

Jen and I

The Team

Now off towards the ski resort and Aiglon college where the tournament is being held. We still don't know how it is going to turn out but we are hoping for the best. I must say it was rather successful. The girls played really well together, they listened to what we were teaching them on the fly and they talked a ton. The best teams weren't in attendance but it was a good warm-up for us. We ended up taking 3rd I believe.

After accepting our medals