Samantha's Oxford Bank team earned a rematch with the Hot Shots Photography team in the first round of the playoffs on Saturday, February 24th. After a repeat performance of bad calls against Sam's team, I began to seriously question whether the ref hates Sam's coach, is friends with the other coach, or maybe both. I'm not saying that the poor calls cost Sam's team the game, because you have to be able to make plays to overcome bad calls, but they certainly didn't do them any favors... in fact, some of the calls took points off of the board and others gave the ball to the opposition when that shouldn't have been the case. Despite all that, Sam's team managed to stay neck and neck with throughout the whole game before falling behind by 6 late. A furious rally in the final 30 seconds by the Oxford Bank team forced overtime, but they were unable to secure the victory after that. When the final buzzer sounded, Sam's season was ended by a 28-26 defeat.

    Since Sam's team was missing two players, including their starting center, Sam was asked to do it all today. She started the game playing center, winning the jump ball for her team. She also spent some time at forward before moving to her normal guard position in the second half. She scored two points in the game, but she probably should have had more. She missed a couple of close-in shots that had she used the backboard she probably would have made. She did play tough defense all around, including in the paint on defense as a center and some tight man-to-man defense late in the game.

    Nobody knows what the future holds, but Samantha is already looking forward to trying out for the 7th grade team when she moves to the middle school next fall!

Playoff Game 1 - vs. Hot Shots Photography
	Samantha started at center today, and that meant that she had to perform the jump ball...
	...which resulted in an inadvertent elbow from the opposing player...
	...though she managed to fight him off anyway and win the tip for her team!
	Sam moved to the lane to play zone defense today, instead of her usual spot at the top of the key as a guard.
	Sam did her best to keep all of the shots coming outside of the lane.
	Here Sam is dribbling the ball down the court while looking for an open teammate to pass to.
	Sam grabbed this offensive rebound.
	Sammie firing up a shot after rebounding another ball.
	Sam's shot going high off the glass.
	Sam firing off another shot over the outstretched arms of an opponent.
	Sam got off one more shot in this half, making this shot off of another offensive rebound.
	Sam managed to play good man-to-man defense all game long.
	Here Sam is forcing her man outside the lane.
	Sam looking for someone to pass to on the offensive end of the court.
	Sam throwing an inbounds pass.
	Sammie dribbling the ball down the court.
	Sam tried to intercept this pass while playing full court pressure defense.
	The final score, a 28-26 loss, in overtime.