Arizona Venom Sports

It's all about the game!

...13U finishes in 3rd place in Reno.

- August, 2007.

This is an unbelievable story of dedication and love for the game. 

 

The Venom 13U had qualified to participate in the AAU National Championship in Reno Nevada.  With the busy tournament schedule and the lack of finances, we decided to pass on the National tournament.  The morning of August 1st, I received a call from the AAU representative telling me that a team from Florida was unable to travel to Reno and there was a spot available in the tournament.  After a few phone calls, 7 players agreed to make the trip.  Because of some uncontrollable situation, 2 players were unable to join us on the trip bringing us down to 5 players.  With a few hours notice and the Carranza family’s donation we decided to take the 13 hour trip with 5 players. 

Once there, the organizers decided to let us borrow 2 local players to give us a few subs.  Kayla and Makayla were the sweetest girls.  Hard working and positive was all we needed to make it through the week. 

 

The tournament was set as a pool play to determine the bracket positions.  Our first day was busy.  After driving 13 hours to Reno we played 2 games.  Our first game was against the GBL Rebels from Los Angeles.  They had a good team with athletic players.  We lost 70 to 52.  the second game was against Alameda Island Blazers.  It was an easier game and we won 81 to 64.

 

Our second day was different.  Promise twisted her ankle the day before and even if we threaded it the overnight effect was too much for Promise to handled and was unable to play in the first game.   We lost the game against Alameda Island Power House Hoops 71 to 56.  Even if Promise was able to play a little bit in the second game against Texas Express Blue but we still lost 54 to 41.

 

Our third day started out great with a win against the Suncoast Sting of Florida 58 to 46.  The concluded the pool play and we finished 4 in the placement and we ended up playing the same team again and winning again 50 to 37.  We then advanced to the semi-final meeting the first place Rebels.  I was a great game until the team set up a boxing-one on Promise forcing the others to play extra hard.  We lost 58 to 34. 

 

The day wasn’t over yet!  Even if we lost we got to play for 3rd place against Power Hoops.  Promise was on a mission.  She started the game running like the win!  She had 14 points at half time on lay-ups alone!  She finished the game with 24 points.