What an exciting first day of Nationals! My name is Jeff Johnson and I’m a dad of two girls who play for the Cincinnati Landmark Eagles. Thank you to Tim Flatt who has given this forum to me and a few others to report on some of the things we see and experience this week.
We were fortunate enough to have three of our kids selected to the All American team. For the boys, Darwin Toliver was selected as a 3rd team All American. On the girls side we had Anna Davis selected to the 2nd team and Rachael Young was selected to the 1st team. It is a great joy to see the kids’ hard work and dedication recognized and rewarded in such a manner. Congratulations to all three and to all of the other great players represented.
On to the games! The boys played in a rematch of last year’s championship game against HCYA. Our boys came out playing great and matched the Warriors for about a quarter and a half. Unfortunately, HCYA proved to be too much and defeated our boys 76-53. The we experienced one of the pitfalls of having 3 coaches for 5 teams and great camaraderie between all of the teams. We were late for our girl’s game!
Our girls were scheduled to play just 5 minutes away at Evangel University. Wanting to stay and support the boys as long as we could, we didn’t leave Baptist Bible until 5:15 for a 5:50 game. The first of our girls didn’t arrive till 5:30 and several were still putting their shoes on 5 minutes before tip-off. I can tell you we didn’t start the game off too well! The WCHSA Royal Eagles were a great foe and their parents have to be the loudest fans here in Springfield. We played them last year and it was no different then. What a great support they are to their girls.
With the added support of some Evangel students (I think they felt sorry for our meager cheering section of about 10 people at the start of the game) and the strong play of our All Americans Rachael Young and Anna Davis, we were able to pull away for the victory.
Tomorrow starts the real running around. Our 12U and 14U girls play 20 minutes apart on opposite sides of the city. Having a girl on each team (my younger daughter, Rachel splits time with both teams) I have to make a decision. My 14 year old, Reagan, starts for the varsity as well so I’m off to cheer on our youngest team. We will be texting and calling from gym to gym to see how the other teams are doing and hoping for five victories tomorrow.
Good luck to all of you this whole week. What a great thing it is to watch young women and men playing their hearts out and glorifying God in the process
Posted on
Monday, March 16, 2009
by Jeff Johnson