WALNUT CREEK -- The St. Raymond Wolfpack took on the Bay Area Lady Warriors in the championship game of the Turkey Shootout Tournament this evening. Before the game even started, it didn’t look like the Wolfpack had much of a chance. The Bay Area Lady Warriors is a U11 AAU team from Oakland comprised of mostly 5th graders who were quite a bit larger than the largest girl on the Wolfpack, not to mention how they towered over Nikki and Maddie Taylor. Enhancing the intimidation factor was the fact that there were 15 Lady Warriors to only 7 girls on the Wolfpack.

Considering the Lady Warriors are an AAU team that practices year round and they were mostly made up of 5th grade girls, it was understandable that the Wolfpack girls, their coaches and their parents all figured this wasn’t going to be a win for the Wolfpack. Despite that, after 5 minutes of play, it became apparent that the Wolfpack would be giving the Lady Warriors all they could handle. By halftime, the Wolfpack held an 8-2 lead and everyone started believing. Everyone was still expecting the Lady Warriors to make a run, but it just never happened. The Wolfpack defense, headed by Nikki and Maddie, gave the Lady Warriors fits as they very seldom had clean looks at the basket without someone in their face, or in most cases, under their chin.

As good as the Wolfpack played in the first half, they played even better in the second half, extending their lead to a jaw dropping 22-8. As you would expect with a team of only 7 girls, each girl played a part in the win. There were no easy paths to the basket, with all the girls providing tough defense and fighting for every rebound. Maddie Taylor was clearly the heart and soul of the team, but it was definitely not a one girl show out there. Maddie, Breyan, Jillian, Hailey and Sammy all provided the scoring.

I’d like to expound on the win and what it meant for our little 4th grade CYO team to not only take on a predominantly 5th grade year round AAU team but to actually beat them soundly, but I think the coaches put it better than I could, so I’m going to include the two emails that were sent out by Coach Mark and Coach Mike.

Hi Everyone,
 
Thanks again for your time this weekend.  It is hard to express how proud of our girls we are.  The final game was a great Team effort with Maddie making free throws and Breyan hitting a couple of key bank shots at the beginning of the game that helped our girls believe that they could play with this intimidating team.  
It was nice to have an extra sub-Jillian-as each of our girls needed a break from the intense action.  We were stunned at times but the girls on the court gave great efforts including Hailey(free throw) and Jillian(laser shot) with key steals and rebounds.  Nikki and Maddie were tenacious and inspirational with pesky defense and energy as well as coming back in after taking some punishment from big girls.  Tess knocked bodies with those big girls and grabbed a few steals as did Samantha (nice basket) who tracked down loose balls and tied up girls into jump ball situations.  When girls needed to they passed the ball well and dribble well both right and left handed.  They are starting to look like basketball players.
 
Another thing is how they kept their cool through all the noise!  We must remember we had 3 games over the weekend and those refs. probably had 12 games on the weekend so they really did a good job all things considered and their heads are probably pounding.
         
Thank you,
Coaches Mark, Mike and Kevin

AND

After a couple of days of thinking about the game, I just can't get over how impressive our girls were.  I've seen and played many basketball games in my life, from grade school to college.  I've been involved with AAU with my two older daughters for six years, so I am familiar with the Lady Warriors program.  They had no business playing in our division.  I have to admit I was very concerned for our girls before and during the game.  Besides getting hurt, I didn't want them to lose their confidence.  Boy was I wrong!  I think that was the most inspiring win I've ever seen.  Mark did a tremendous job of instilling confidence in the girls.  They were pretty wide eyed and noticeably scared.  The pictures Mike(Nikki's dad) sent tells the story.  The picture of Nikki amongst  the giants was classic.  It was truly an example of its not size of the player, its the size of their heart that matters.   Our girls seemed to feed  off each other, and as the game wore on their confidence grew.  Give your girls a hug and tell them how proud they should be of themselves, and proud we are of them.  I know I was very proud of Maddie, and she learned a bit about herself.
 
Michael Taylor