Our team has been practicing for the past few weeks, and we’ve now had a couple of games. I definitely think basketball here has been a very unique experience for everyone on the team. Just about all of us are new to the team this year, we’re pretty small in numbers, and we have a new coach as well. I really believe all these factors have helped bring us together. A lot of the teams that we’ll play will be a little more established and will have played together for a longer time than us. It is enjoyable, though, that we’re all in the same boat here. We’re all trying to figure out how each other play and what we need to do to be successful. I feel very fortunate to be playing with these girls, all of us have clicked very quickly which definitely helps with the overall atmosphere. As our coach likes to say over and over again, “we’re a small row boat that we have to keep afloat,” we are all working really well together and playing very unselfishly. It’s nice to see the improvements as we all get to know each other better and learn our system of play.
This past weekend, after our first home game, we had a lovely team dinner at the Italian restaurant, Venice, and then went to test our teamwork capabilities at one of the Escape Rooms. It was the first time all of us have hung out together outside of basketball, and it was honestly so fun. First of all, the food was great, so already the team bonding was a success in my book. The Escape Room after dinner was also a success. The theme of the room we were brought to was a quarantined hospital room. We had 60 minutes to get ourselves out, and we were able to figure it out with three minutes to spare. We’d like to say we also did it without asking for any clues, although Ailish may or may not have completed this room before and she may or may not have given us some tips while we were in there. Either way, we were pretty impressed with our timing. The worker was even impressed with how quickly and calmly we managed it, as he was used to seeing a lot of bickering and arguing on the cameras.
I am really looking forward to continuing to play on this team with these new friends. Just from game one to game two we’ve shown great improvement and I’m excited to see how things go this season.
