From October 12-14, the U14 girls’ basketball team went to a tournament at Olympia Sports camp for three days and two nights! We had such an amazing time competing in a four team tournament with Havergal College and two Holy Trinity School teams. KCS was the host of the tournament, and it was the very first year!

We all participated in a very educational basketball workshop with Melanie Gerin Lajoie who taught us proper shooting technique, dribbling drills, and helped us prepare for the games which started the next day. We also had a great time participating in exciting team building activities that helped us meet all of the amazing girls on the other teams! 

The first night that we were there, we got to play an extremely exciting game of Minute to Win It, where we participated in activities like ping pong cups, Oreo stack, and creating our own team cheer and name – which we decided was “Live, Laugh, Love, Cougars”! Our team ended up victorious winning this very competitive Minute to Win It game.

The next day, the round robin games started and it was time to put all of the skills that we had been taught to the test. The first game we played was against the second Holy Trinity School team. After a hard fight and lots of teamwork we came out with a big victory. The score of the game was 20-10 for KCS! We had won our first game. We were thrilled that we won but knew our next game was just around the corner and we had to fight as hard as we did in the last game that we had just played. 

Barely 10 minutes after, the next game started where we faced the first Holy Trinity School team. This game was an incredibly hard battle against a team that had lots of very competitive and aggressive players. After lots of 50/50 balls and fouls we ended up losing by 1 point with a finishing score of 8-9. We were upset, but knew if we continued to try our best, we could come out successful. Our final game of the day was against the current undefeated team, and also the tallest- Havergal. We were all nervous for this game as we knew it would be a hard fight. 

Throughout the game, we tried lots of new things and had lots of successful baskets and plays. In the third quarter, we had a tremendous come back of 10 points and were so close to tying up the game. Unfortunately, we lost the game by 1 point, with a final score of 18-19. Even though we were very disappointed, we persevered and did not give up. 

After the games on the first day, our team and the Havergal team got to go on the Giant Swing. The Giant Swing is a double person swing that’s lifted up 60 feet in the air by a rope by the rest of the team. You drop yourselves and go free falling- flying backwards over the lake as you swing uncontrollably in the air! It was very scary but so much fun and a great chance to make friends with the other teams! 

The next day was game day. It was our final chance to prove ourselves and to snag the win. In the round robin games, we finished in 3rd place which means we would play the 2nd place team. During the game, we played our hearts out. And even though this team beat us by one point before, we beat them by 14 points! That means that we moved on to the finals! 

The final was the last game of the whole tournament, and it was all up to this. We played our hearts out, tried our best, took every shot we could get, and worked together to the best of our abilities. The U14 girls’ basketball team is happy to announce that we have won the tournament at Camp Olympia!! Thank you Ms. Field for organizing the entire tournament! 

Written by the players on the U14 Girls’ Basketball Team