basketball, when you are sixteen

back at the gym for Samuel's last game of the season....

he hit three 3's during the warm-up!

Samuel's been playing for the same coach for a number of years, and it's a really nice group of boys.  this is the 15-17yo age group, so things can get pretty physical.  two of the players are out for the season due to injury (one in a game; the other, unrelated), so the four older guys play the entire game.  which basically entails sprinting from one end of the court to the other & back again & back again & back again and, at each end, attempting to shoot or block before the other team does the opposite.

pre-game strategy talk

for most of the game, Samuel was up against a really big guy, trying to block him from going for a lay-up.  the guy was so big that, at one point, one of the smaller players on Samuel's team actually ended up on the guy's back while trying to block him.  it looked a bit like they were playing leap-frog.  unfortunately, i did not get a video of that.

 Samuel is #21, gold jersey.

we were happy to see these refs at the game.  sometimes there are some really inexperienced refs calling the game, and things can get pretty ugly.  but these guys are good.

after about thirty or forty minutes of gladiator sprinting....

a typical photograph.

the other team had, just about, a full bench.

even so, it was a close game until the very end.

post-game