"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."

-Charles DuBois

If you have never witnessed b-e-a-utiful basketball, I wish you could have seen our game at Carroll. We were amidst the longest road trip of the season, we had already been gone four days, we were tired, and we were down 14 at half thanks to Katya’s three at the buzzer, or we would have been down 17 at the break. Against all odds, we persevered and came out victorious.

Every time our backs were against the wall, someone pulled through, and it was a new person each time. Janeen hit a big three to give us the lead late in the second half, Katya hit another big three late in the game, Jade took over the game and made the Carroll guards look like rag dolls, Aundrea owned the post in the second half, Katie stole the ball like a thief, and Mandy made a huge three-point play in OT.

On the bench, we screamed like school girls, we jumped out of our seats, we twirled towels above our heads, and slapped a hundred hi-fives. In the last minute of OT, Jade came over to the bench and said, " When we win guys, don’t celebrate. Wait until we get in the locker room." So we waited, and we screamed and jumped and hugged for a good minute once we got back into the locker room.

But one Warrior was missing the celebration...

With 17 seconds remaining in the extra period, Aundrea Morrison hit the floor in shouts of pain. My stomach turned queasy at the sight of her agony, and something told me it wasn’t good. After the game I went to see her in the trainer’s room, and I knew it wasn’t going to be like an ankle injury or something she was going to walk off. I wanted to take her place. Katya and I helped her to the locker room, and I carried her sweaty socks.

We learned quickly upon return home that she had torn-up her entire knee. She didn’t travel with us this weekend to Westminster, and there was an eerie feeling without her. She will have surgery this week.

No one can take Aundrea’s place, because her shoes are far too big. But we still have a great team. We all believe in each other, and there is nothing that stands in our way of achieving our goals we set at the beginning of the year. Tough teams find a way to win, no matter the circumstances. We did that at Carroll, and we did it at Westminster this weekend.

Katya Yancheva elevated her game this weekend and gave a 22-point showing to help us scrape by Westminster. We struggled the entire game, but we found a way on the road. It was our first post-Aundrea win, as we fight to weld our team back together. No one ever said it was going to be easy. This weekend we also learned a valuable lesson about being on time. Being on time on our cuts, on our screens, on our defense, and to the van for practice.

We are down to 10 players, but we still have our good friend Ben Schuster helping us in practice. Ben was hired by Coach Orr last year to help us out in practice, and fill in when we need an extra player. Ben does a great job, and is a huge asset to our team. He is just another face behind the scenes that makes this team great.