As we prepared for our season opener all last week I was anticipating some struggles as a team. With beginning the school year as well as trying to define roles/teams, feeling over confident and looking past our opponent I knew that the Wellington game would have its share of learning opportunities. Oh boy did we learn a good lesson! I told the boys at halftime that right before Wellington threw the ball in I was thinking it might be good for us if they scored right then.....well I didn't really think it was going to become reality. Going into half I could tell the boys were frustrated and quite surprised at the score. Dominating the first half and coming in with nothing to show for it as well as being down a goal was not in the pre-game plans. With all this said, I knew that God has blessed us with a valuable lesson that needed to be learned. The lesson was:
When we face struggle we play harder and trust each other more. I told the boys at half that we will be in the same situation in a more important game further down the season. I also told them that this game was going to set in motion the level of play we want to play at. So going into the second half I challenged the team to run harder than Wellington and trust their teammates. We know the outcome of the second half. When we play harder good things happen!
So moral of the story...When we are losing, when we are playing down, when we are feeling pressure, when we are fighting to get back into a game we must play harder defense, we must stay calm and most of all we must trust each other to come through in the end.
I will leave you all with the thought that has been a theme and saying for the past couple of weeks within the team.
"When you see a turtle on a fence post what should you think? You should think it didn't get there by itself" (citation: David Petrel)........ We will never get anywhere by individual effort, but together we can get to where we want to be come November.
Next game: New Albany....another game, another lesson, Praise God!
