Emanuel's Basketball playoffs

Yesterday was playoff time for Emanuel's basketball team. We had two games yesterday in an elimintation style tournament. So, we knew we would have at least the first game and if we won that we would play again and if we won that we'd play the next day (Sunday).
So, the first game went really well. Emanuel is just average on offense but really something to watch on defense. Another mom on the team has nicknamed him "the theif" because he steals the ball so often. He makes usually between 15-20 rebounds per game (these are short YMCA games...lasting between 45 min and 1 hour). He played really well this first game and they won. He did have to sit out a bit in the first half because he ran into some foul trouble. I've said before, he plays really aggressive which translates into both a lot of awesome plays...and a lot of fouls. 5 minutes into the game, he'd already fouled twice and the coach wanted to make sure he'd be available in the later parts of the game if needed (he is really one of only two or three that aren't afraid to steal the ball and go after rebounds aggressively) So to make sure he didn't foul out too soon, he sat out part of the first half. He was at his best the second half though. He stole the ball so many times, the crowd was going crazy. Yes, I know he's my kid and I don't mean to brag but he really is something to see on defense (offense...needs work) So they won and were excited to come back in an hour for a second playoff game. The bad part was that they were short a couple of players and one of thier really good offensive players (who is usually responsible for a good number of the points they put up) had to leave after the first game becuase it was his first day of indoor soccor. What the heck? Indoor soccor???? People, dont make your kid miss a PLAYOFF game in basketball for a lousy game of indoor soccor! Couldn't he just have missed the first soccor game? God, I hope his parents aren't reading this! Anyway, so the team was pretty short staffed. We just had time to grab lunch in between games and give him the usual pep talk about keeping his hands straight up in the air to avoid some of those fouls and to make sure he boxes out with his hips in order to get rebounds ect.
We arrived for the second game and much to everyone's dissapointment, the opponents were a team they'd played before and had gotten killed by. This team has giant players. I mean, GIANT PLAYERS. Their kids are so big that one mom commented that it looked like they had woken up, showered, shaved and driven themselves to the tournament. The kid Manny was matched against was so tall that he could hold his arm up higher than Manny could jump. Seriously the kid could put the ball up with the greatest of ease because all he had to do was stand there and just dump the ball in the hoop. He barely even had to shoot! Manny and all his teammates were pretty discouraged by that. It was frusterating to them that there isn't much of a way to defend against someone whose size is that much greater. To thier credit, they did well. Emanuel put up a few points and did get many rebounds and steals. It's just that he was unable to stop the other team from shooting and scoring. The score stayed close for about the first 8 minutes and then it was all downhill. At the last few seconds of the game, Albert and I shouted out onto the court that if he made one more rebound, we'd get him ice cream. I kid you not, as the buzzer buzzed, that kid pulled down one more rebound. Now we owe him ice cream.
He and all his teammates were bitterly dissapointed. We all told them how proud we were of them and that they had done a great job and had a wonderful season but they of course were too dissapointed to hear it right then. Emanuel didn't even want to claim his ice cream! Losing is part of playing and something that everyone will experience at some point, and I'm sure he'll be fine, as will all of his team mates. They worked hard this season and all of them learned so much and we really are looking forward to having the same team back next season.