Brynnie's State Run

 Brynnie and the Eudora Cardinals were SO MUCH FUN to watch this year!  They'd played well together and had some incredibly-talented ball players.  They handled their substate easily for a trip to the state tournament. (Thank you to the Eudora Times for several of the pictures in this post.)

Congrats, Lady Cards!!

Their quarterfinal game was at 2:00 on Tuesday at Kansas City Kansas Community College (and then Oliver's game was at 8:00 at Friends in Wichita; see next post).  Evelyn brought her besties along with us so that ALL of her besties, including Kyla, could be together to cheer on Brynn.

Eudora was the #3 seed, so we were the home team for this match-up.

Unfortunately, we drew the short-straw yet again with the #6 seed being Bishop-Miege. If Eudora's record had included one more win, or one more loss, we could have avoided in the first round.  Their record is always deceiving as they are a 4A school who plays 6A schools all season.

We got our program. . .

. . . Brynn was one of the captains. . .

. . . and the starting line-ups were announced.  Let's go, Brynnie!!

The first half was back-and-forth, and we trailed by 4 going into halftime.

Brynn played her heart out.  She was matched up with their stud, Mary Grant, who is the all-time leading scorer for Miege.  Brynn and Mary played very similarly, and it was a hard-fought battle.

Unfortunately, we came up on the wrong side of the scoreboard on this particular day. I believe that we were very well-matched and would beat this team more often than not.  But it wasn't meant to be this time.  Brynn is such a competitor and lover of the game.  I absolutely LOVE watching my god-daughter do what she loves. I'm thankful for her heart and tenacity and attitude and humility on the court. Most of all, I'm thankful that we get to watch her another year! I love you, Brynn Marie! And I'm SO proud of you!!

Let's Go Eagles All the Way to STATE!

 The sub-state championship game was last night and our Wellsville Eagles punched their ticket to STATE!  It's been an exciting week for sure.  First up was the quarter-final game we hosted against Frontenac.  We got our souvenir program, including some support from Russ' office in the advertising.

Let's go Eagles! Last game on our home court; leave it all out there!

Frontenac didn't put up much of a fight and we had a comfortable lead through most of the game.

Last time playing a game in Grandpa's Gym. :(

Violet always finds friends to sit with, and sometimes those friends are also her teacher.  She loves Emily so much.

Final score 74-51 and moving on to the semi-finals! Nothing like winning the last home game ever! Both of my boys can say this, which is pretty awesome.

Oliver is blessed to have great family support!

Our next game was against the top-ranked team in our substate bracket: the Riverton Rams. We got to take a nice road trip (almost 2.5 hours) for this one.

They had a really nice gym and a seemingly brand-new school. It was all pretty and shiny.

Even though Riverton had a good record, Oliver wasn't convinced they would be all that good because their regular-season competition isn't as strong as ours.

As it turned out, they led us the majority of the game, sometimes by as many as 12.  As the 4th quarter ticked away, we were all beginning to believe that this would be the final game.  In fact, we were still down by 7 with 1:10 to go in the game. . . and they had the ball. . . and there was no shot clock. The game was as good as over. Until we got a couple steals, made a couple quick threes and found ourselves all tied up!  They had a chance at the last shot, but it didn't fall. Overtime!!

We dominated in the overtime by getting the first bucket, taking care of the ball, and making our free throws.  We outscored them 11-1 in the overtime -- survive and advance!

In previous years, the substate championship game has been held on Saturday and we've had a team breakfast for the team on that morning.  This year the format changed and the finals were held on Friday night.  We moms decided a team dinner on Thursday night was in order so we got planning! Holtons hosted and Jamie had some festive decorations to get everyone pumped up for the game.  I donated the banner I had made for Calvin's team two years ago because it had definitely worked for them! (This is why I never throw things away; you just never know when you might need them again!)

We had a Mexican feast and no one went hungry.

The boys had a fun night hanging out with their teammates and getting ready to take home the 'ship!

As luck would have it, we ended up facing Anderson County in the finals, a league team we'd already beat twice this season by a convincing margin (think running clock).  Regardless of the history, the boys knew they'd have to come to play.  It was a close game throughout the first half and we were actually down by 5 at half time.  I love the way these senior boys always cheer on their teammates!

And I love that we had such an awesome crowd travel to West Franklin for the game. Check out our packed student section!

I spy some sweet middle-school girls toward the top of that full section of Wellsville students!

Even though Anderson County led the majority of the first half, we finally remembered how to score in the 3rd quarter and never looked back. We ended up winning 52-43 and were presented the sub-state championship trophy!

Love these smiles!

Way to go, Eagles!

These BBL boys looking very studious with their new hardware.

Lots of celebrations all around!

Joy and Scott came from Brynn's game (which she also won!) and were able to celebrate 2 championships in one night.

Great group of Senior boys!

And these are my two favorite pictures of the night. What a fun week Oliver and his team had!

Both of my boys get to finish out their high school basketball careers at state -- it doesn't get much better than that! Thank you, Lord, for these fun high school memories!

The BBL

Oliver and some of his buddies have started a weekly Bible study and we hosted on Monday.  Violet was SO excited to have them here and the boys were so awesome with her (as you'll see in a couple of the pics). They ended up playing basketball until after 10:30 p.m. (and they had their substate semifinal game in Riverton the next day -- thankfully, it didn't affect their playing and they still got the W). I'm thankful for Eli (the other Senior in the group) and the way he and Oliver lead the boys in their study of God's Word.  This is the good stuff of high school, for sure, and I love that Oliver is soaking it all in during his final semester.  I'll let him tell you a little more.

We have started up a new thing this spring called the BBL, or Bible Basketball League. We get together on a weeknight and eat dinner, read the Bible, and play basketball. It doesn't get much better. This past week, I offered to host. We had soup, and Eli's mom made some delicious bread to go along with it.

 

After we ate dinner, we continued our reading of the Joseph saga from Genesis. When we had finished our reading, Violet picked our teams for the 2v2 tournament. She did a great job of picking.

Up on the deck was where the announcer's booth resided. It's pretty fun calling a game from up there.

Nate and I actually ended up winning the tournament as underdogs, and I was unanimously voted MVP. It was an absolute honor.

It's been fun doing the BBL for the last few weeks, and I enjoy spending time with these guys you see here.

Lydia's Luncheon

 We served our Lydia's Luncheon for the 14th time on Sunday, this time we landed right on March 1, the day Lydia was called home to Jesus.  Amanda signed us up to serve at the Wylie House this year where we were 2 years ago.  This house is so nice!

It was a cold, dreary day (actually began storming while we were there). Our soups really hit the spot. We had chicken & noodle, tomato, taco, and potato soups, along with Amanda's homemade sour dough bread, veggies, cheese & crackers, and desserts.  It may have been our lightest year yet as far as number of people we served. I guess that's a good thing that not many families are needing to stay at the house right now?  We left multiple bowls of soup as leftovers in the fridge for any others who may come through.  It's always great serving with Amanda's family and my mom and I'm thankful for the opportunity to do so each year!