Update from Tanya
20/11/09
Kai is not great on details.
Yesterday the boys were taught defence zoning by Mario. Mario informed the boys that MACSA had been operating for 13 yrs and in those 13yrs MACSA teams have won 30 national US titles. Mario is the Coaching Director of MACSA (I think that’s his official title). That is a pretty amazing opportunity and experience for these boys to receive training from someone with those credentials. I cannot believe the difference in their playing ability in only 3 training sessions with Mario.
This evening, we thought that they were going to get their first game of the tournament but for some reason they don’t get their first tournament game until tomorrow. It would appear that each team is going to play 3 or 4 games over the tournament. Tonight however, there was a team that was scheduled to play a tournament game but another team had pulled out so Mario thought set up another practice game for us and this other team. I believe that they were U16’s and from somewhere around this region but I’m not actually sure where they are from. The game was 3 x 20min thirds with each vikings team playing one each then halving the final third. Blue was up first and ended their third with a 2-1 lead with Ben & Liam scoring the goals. Then Gold took to the court and gave away 2 more goals ending their third at 2-3. Blue then took the first 10 mins of the third third and no team scored. Gold took the final 10 mins and was also not conceding or scoring a goal until they opponents scored in the last minute of the game ending it with a 2-4 defeat. I could really see both teams putting into practice what they have learnt over the last few days and it was also nice to see the team sitting off court supporting the team on the court with reminders of where they should be and what they should be doing. We then had the opportunity to play another makeup game at 7.30 so David pulled players from both teams to make a team to play this game. Kai was not included in this team so we came back to the hotel. I’m sure that I will have some details on this game tomorrow. From what I have been told each team will play one game each tomorrow and then they will play against each other and the winner of that team will play a game on Sunday.
I have included some photos I took yesterday at the MACSA centre. Regards
Tanya
