13 players participated in basketball tryouts and Coach Smith decided to keep all thirteen rather than cut one player for a 12 man squad. Eric is working to increase his endurance. Prior to tryouts we encouraged him to drop some weight and get a regular workout schedule, but he was sporadic about workouts. He has been plagued by shin splints several days.
Category Archives: basketball
Eric, Summer Basketball and the Recurring Ankle
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Eric recovered from his tonsil surgery hoping to join in the HP soccer and basketball teams for the remainder of the summer. Unfortunately, he has continued to experience issues with his right ankle. In the past year Eric has had 5 or 6 ankle sprains to the same joint and undergone two sessions of physical therapy – not counting the fractured right foot over a year ago. After a few weeks of inactivity he sprained it again playing basketball after successfully playing soccer on Monday night. Today we went to a physical therapy assessment and x-rays with the orthopedic surgeon; to be followed up with an MRI in the near future.
King of the Mountain AAU Tournament
Eric played in what was likely his last 2018 AAU tournament with his Mohawk Valley Elite team. They lost a close game to a much large Coast-to-Coast team, won their 2nd game by ~30 points and lost their final game to the Connecticut Titans by 30 points. Eric played well; mainly playing good defense, passing and rebounding. He scored 2 points in each of his games.
Mohawk Valley Elite Spring Tournament
Eric and his Mohawk Valley Elite AAU team played four games in a one day tournament on Saturday hosted at Accelerate Sports Complex. The team started off the season with a record of 1-8 and finished the last nine games 7-2 in tournament play. Eric played mainly as a wing. His strength was the ability to play defense versus 3-5 and rebound. Eric had times when he was aggressive rebounding and getting steals, but wasn’t much of an offensive threat. This was a good bunch of kids and thanks to the coaches for all their work.
AAU Hoopfest @ Mohonasen
Eric played in single day AAU tournament held at Mohonasen on Saturday. They won their 1st two games by margins of 4 and 20 points earning their way to the championship game by virtual of point differential (1 point). Eric had his usual performance, not scoring much but setting picks, rebounding and playing defense on positions 3-5.
Ice Out
Kathryn and I took a walk through the woods, but found 6″ of snow in several places. The ice cleared off of two of our ponds, but not this one.
With the help of the dogs we chased the Canada Geese off one of our ponds and then located our evergreen trees in the little triangle lot. The transplants we planted over the past two years needed to be uncovered and allowed to straighten up.
Eric had an AAU basketball tournament (MVE Spring Shootout) at Accelerate with games against Salt City and Tri-Valley Playerz. They lost close games to both, but Eric recorded 15 and 10 rebounds respectively.
What’s Going On?
It seems like spring weather. We heard red-winged blackbirds for the first time Sunday evening; they are usually the first arrivals. They have been singing like crazy since then. Our snow is mostly gone; just patches left scattered around. Which means we had to engage in the first round of the annual spring pick-up-dog-poop-in-the-yard ritual. Kathryn’s friend Gaie and her friend Pat Wegman came out Wednesday-Friday. We had planned to have them come ski, but the weather has been uncooperative. Gaie and Pat went up to Egypt Hill where there are free, groomed trails just north of here. They said it was beautiful if a bit icy. On Thursday we went up most of my main trail across the road and the snow was pretty good but not deep so we had to pick our way around wet spots and sticks. But it was still pretty good. Kathryn and her friends did a lot of sitting around talking and hot tubbing. They a lot of fun and it was nice for Kathryn to have sustained time to visit with Gaie. Pat seemed very nice.
Kathryn has been communicating with a woman who has a senior women’s team out of Victor. She went to Victor on Friday to play some with her on just a pick up basis. Although Kathryn thought she played really well, the woman, Audrey, is really looking for a hitter (which Kathryn am not). The primary focus is on qualifying for a national tournament. Kathryn is disappointed as she had gotten my hopes up. There still might be some opportunity and it is likely they will be fielding an over 65 team for the Empire Senior Games.
Eric has to have his tonsils out, although we are going to try to wait for that until school is out, since he has missed so much time already. He also has to have his wisdom teeth out. High school basketball has ended. The season for him, was mixed; he missed so many practices and games, he was solidly on the 2nd string and so only played about a quarter a game. Eric did a 5 day intensive basketball camp over spring break and came away with a certain determination to put more into basketball which lasted about 1 week. Try-outs / practices for his Mohawk Valley Elite AAU start tonight with tournaments to start in about 1 month.
2017-18 JV Basketball Season
Eric finished his 2017-18 JV basketball season. As a freshman he was usually the 2nd player off the bench and got a reasonable amount of playing time. He missed some games and practices due to recurring strep throat, but pushed through at the end. Overall the team had a successful season with losses to Cooperstown, Sherburne-Earlville and Whitesboro.
Following conclusion of the HP JV basketball season he participated in a week-long basketball game run by Doneilous King and prepared to join a Mohawk Valley Elite AAU team.
HP JV vs Whitesboro
Eric and his friend Ty only had a few minutes on the floor vs one another but Kelly caught this picture.
HP JV Bball vs Cooperstown
HP lost 72-71 in overtime to Cooperstown. Eric played much of the game; scoring 4 points by making 2 free throws and a floater in the lane.
