Wolves - Fall 2018

When Fall rolled around, Copper Hills had their try-outs for their Bantam league too. But, with new boundaries coming (Cal and Keaton were lucky enough to get in on permit) the chances of Colton actually attending CHHS in the future was slight. He decided to forgo tryouts and just stick with one team, his Wolves. Still double games on Saturdays though, as they were playing in two leagues. We added Michael to the team.

I'm not sure why, but both Dimple Dell and Gene Fullmer only divided the 8th grade into two divisions, upper and lower. Both leagues had over 20 teams participating, plenty to create a middle division as well. Wolves are middle division ... there are upper league teams that we'd have no chance against, and lower division teams are easy wins without challenge. Last Fall, Dimple Dell league had a middle division, and every single game was close and challenging and it was a great season. Here ... the end results going into the playoffs are skewed depending on the regular season matchups (just five games/12 teams).  Wolves started in the upper division in both leagues, but after blowouts the first two games in the Gene Fullmer league, switched the lower division there.  Wolves stuck with the upper division for Dimple Dell. Both leagues divided the playoffs into upper/lower based on the season standings.  

Gene Fullmer Fall 2018

1. Utah Select (won the upper division)

2. Cyprus

3. Premier (still upper division 34-26)

4. Sonics (14-44)

5. Legacy Red (16-51)

6. Hoopsters (13-45)

7. UBC (36-33)

8. Mayhem Black (12-48)

9. Hoopsters 

10. UBC

11. (Championship) Thunder

Wolves were 7-4 for the season. I tried to list the scores (first number is the team listed, Wolves score is the second one) ... by the time I got to this update Gene Fullmer and pulled the Quickscores Website info down, so I'm missing some. I didn't catch the end score on my video on those either (sometimes the officials zero out the scoreboard SO quickly!) Colton missed the championship game :( He was so sick! Wolves won the upper/lower division.

Dimple Dell Fall 2018

1. Utah Force Red (58-36) 

2. Salt City Hustle (49-26)

3. Salt Lake Sonics Grey (45-38)

4. Lone Peak Gold (12-43)

5. Utah Force Black (24-56)

6. Legends (28-37) 

7. (Championship) Rams (20-28)

Colton missed the first game (his brothers's wedding reception) and the first play-off game (still sick) but made it back for the lower/upper championship, which the Wolves won! Got t-shirts for both championship games. They are always a little big on Colton!

The Wolves also participated in a Dodgeball challenge ...

... onto Winter Wolves!
(and Colton will be playing on a West Jordan Bantam team too)

Colton - Summer Wolves (7th)

I love this picture ... with the placement of Colton out front, he doesn't look like the tiny team player he is! This was taken in Cedar City as the Wolves traveled to a tournament there in June. I, of course, don't travel, but one of the other families took Colton along with them.

The Wolves played in the Dimple Dell Summer Superleague, which was a short season. Just five games in the season, then playoffs. Colton missed the first game, as he was with the family on a getaway to Bear Lake. The Wolves won without him,  in fact, they won all five games and were the top seed.

There had been eight more teams too, so the season results can be a little skewed. The top eight went into playoffs, and the bottom eight had their own playoffs. The Wolves faced Murray, and Murray got the win. Murray then won the Panthers, then played the Herriman Mustangs in the championship. The Mustangs got the win. Here are my highlights from the season ...

• Game 1 (07/14/2018) Utah Dash
• Game 2 (07/28/2018) Kongo
• Game 3 (08/04/2018) Clutch
• Game 4 (08/11/2018) Rebels
• Game 5 (08/18/2018) Riverton

*** Other Summer Stuff ***

The Wolves also participated in a tournament at the South Towne Expo center. 

To say it's crazy is an understatement! 

Just a peek ... they put up dozens of temporary courts.
Oh the noise. The yelling, the whistles. 

I'm not sure if they are actively trying to discourage spectators (for space)...

But the pricing DID discourage me. 

I just sent Colton with teammates and didn't see (or video) these games.

The boys also played in a tournament at Soccer City. 

I took video but never got around to making highlight reels.

Colton - Wolves in Spring (7th)

Spring season ... the Wolves played in two leagues, the Dimple Dell Superleague on Saturdays, and the Murray Topflight league on Mondays. The Wolves got new RED uniforms, we added Kian to the team, and welcomed Siah back. Both leagues provided some easy games, some challenging games, some wins, some losses. In both leagues, the team we played in the final regular season game, was the team we played in the first playoff game. Funny how that works out. Colton (and I) made it to all the games, here's the video highlights ...

Dimple Dell Superleague
1. Wolves vs Legends (03/31/2018)
2. Wolves vs Buckets (04/21/2018)
3. Wolves vs Attack (04/28/2018)
4. Wolves vs U3 (05/02/2018)
5. Wolves vs Chargers (05/02/2018)
6. Wolves vs EMB (05/12/2018)
7. Wolves vs SV Elite (05/19/2018)
8. Wolves vs SV Elite (06/02/2018)
9. Wolves vs Miners (06/02/2018)

Murray Topflight
1. Wolves vs TC Elite (04/02/2018)
2. Wolves vs Bucketzz (04/09/2018)
3. Wolves vs Titans (04/16/2018)
4. Wolves vs Murray (04/30/2018)
5. Wolves vs Mayhem (05/07/2018)
6. Wolves vs A-Train (05/14/2018)
7. Wolves vs Judge (05/21/2018)
8. Wolves vs Judge (06/04/2018)
9. Wolves vs Mayhem (06/11/2018)

Colton - 6th Grade Grizzlies in Spring

Colton and his Grizzly Crew played Spring season with the Gene Fullmer Superleague. It was a great season, they made it through undefeated and claimed the championship! Unfortunately, as half the team was actually a grade under, and there are differences in ball sizes for 6th and 7th (something Colton faced playing on both a 6th and 7th grade team these past two seasons) the younger kids are going to stay playing 6th come Fall. We'll have to see if there are enough Grizzlies Colton's age to move forward ... or Colton might just stick with the Wolves. 

Colton missed the first game (out of town) but the Grizzlies got the win without him. Here are links to the highlights of the rest of the games this Spring season ...

• Grizzlies vs Riverton (April 21, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Bingham (April 24, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Westlake (April 28, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Skyridge (May 01, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Rams (May 5, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Legends (May 12, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Legends (May 22, 2018)
• Grizzlies vs Bingham (June 2, 2018)

Grizzly Summer 2018

While the Copper Hills Grizzlies team Colton had played on for a few years had wrapped up in Spring, Colton still got in a little Grizzly action over the summer.  Copper Hills hosts an annual clinic at the high school, and Colton participated and had fun.  Nice t-shirt too!

Then, Colton got an invite to play in a 3x3 tournament downtown.

It was outside, and it was hot! You can see from the picture above that the sun was in their eyes! It was Tyler, Taynek and Blake from the Grizzles team, with another friend of Tyler's to make a team of five. The boys made it to the semi-finals but couldn't clinch the win (said the other team had a couple of 6-foot sixth graders!)

 Between the original rounds, the boys would hang out, 

and got to meet a few players!

Colton - Winter Wolves

For Winter - not only did Colton play on two teams (Grizzlies and Wolves), but then the Wolves played in two leagues. Dimple Dell on Saturdays, and Murray on Monday nights. Brig joined the pack for these two leagues. 

Dimple Dell League

• December 2, 2017 ...  Wolves vs Bengals
• December 9, 2017 ...  Wolves vs SL Sonics
• December 18, 2017 ... Wolves vs Cyprus
• January 6, 2018 ... Wolves vs Corner Canyon *
• January 20, 2018 ... Wolves vs American Fork *
• January 27, 2018 ... Wolves vs NWBA
• February 3, 2018 ... Wolves vs Future (I didn't attend, no video)
• February 24, 2018 ... Wolves vs Utah Dash (Colton didn't attend, no video)

Murray Top Flight League

• January 8, 2018 ... Wolves vs Stars
• January 15, 2018 ... Wolves vs Murray *
• January 22, 2018 ... Wolves vs Stansbury
• February 5, 2018 ... Wolves vs Titans
• February 12, 2018 ... Wolves vs TC Elite
• February 19, 2018 ... Wolves vs A-Team (Colton didn't attend, no video)
• February 26, 2018 ... Wolves vs Warthogs
• March 5, 2018 ... Wolves vs Warthogs 
• March 12, 2018 ... Wolves vs All Poly (just didn't get around to making a video)

Colton averages about 10 points a game ... but this season, in both leagues, he had three games in a row where he was on FIRE (* above) with 30+ points! Murray kept a stat sheet and shared totals after the first few games. It was fun to see Colton there at the top for scoring and three-pointers!

These stats were early in the season, but Colton still finished up 2nd for scoring and I think third for 3-pointers. That was even with one game where he didn't score at all (still played a great game, had 11 assists, which is currently Cal's record held at Copper Hills) and then he missed a game ... out with knee issues.

It was there on January 27, playing the girls, when Colton went down hitting his right knee badly. He continued to play that day and in future games, but struggled with pain quite a bit. I ended up running him into the doctor mid-February where he received a double diagnosis of "Jumper's Knee" (an overuse injury, which is what I suspected. Cal had this at about the same age) and bursitis (from the fall. He had a visible bump that hadn't gone away). Remedy?  Rest. Some ice and compression too, but mainly rest. Colton was supposed to play in a President's Day tournament that weekend, but we bowed out. He missed several practices and a couple league games. He probably returned to play a bit early for the tournament (win or go home) ... it was just so hard to not play when physically he COULD, he just shouldn't. Then the season ended and he had a few more real weeks to rest.

Practices were Thursdays at a church gym in West Jordan and Fridays at the SLCC gym.

Very grateful for parents willing to chauffer Colton around to help out. 

Colton - Back to Bantam

Copper Hills hosts a Bantam Basketball league each Winter. This is for "school" teams (not all-star teams) in a preparatory league. All the games are held at Copper Hills, which is so nice and close (and home court advantage, although that doesn't really come into play at this age). Colton and his Grizzlies were ready to play! Coming off their championship win from Fall, they were knocked down a peg in their first game against a really good Bingham team. In a rematch later in the season, the boys made a better showing (although still couldn't quite get the win). Nail-biter OT win against Olympus in the first round, then Olympus took the next two games. The other games were fairly easy wins for the Grizzlies.

Several of the boys were doing double duty, playing on two teams. We missed Austin and Blake in a few games. Happily, there were no direct conflicts with Colton's Wolves team. The Bantam games were earlier, and the Dimple Dell games were later in the day on Saturdays. There were some odd breaks (while the Copper Hills gym was being used for drill team and other competitions) and then some double headers, but it all worked out. 

Unfortunately, Colton's knee was giving him issues (jumper's knee and bursitis) for the final few games of the season. He didn't miss any Grizzlies games (he did have to skip several Wolves ones), but sat out a couple practices and didn't feel 100% for the final two games. Hoping the break before Spring will help with the healing!

• Game 1 (12/02/2017) Bingham
• Game 2 (12/9/2017) Leopards
• Game 3 (12/16/2017) Juan Diego
• Game 4 (01/13/2018) UBC
• Game 5 (01/13/2018) Olympus
• Game 6 (02/03/2018) Juan Diego
• Game 7 (02/03/2018) Bingham
• Game 8 (02/10/2018) Olympus
• Game 9 (02/10/2018) Herriman
• Game 10 (02/17/2018) Herriman
• Game 11 (02/24/2018) Olympus
• Game 12 Championship ~ Olympus vs Bingham

Cooper - 8th Grade Junior Jazz

I still remember a couple years ago when Cooper said he wanted to play Junior Jazz. While he is skilled, and obsessed with basketball and all things NBA, it had been a few years since he'd played on a team. But this great group of boys made all the difference. Friends from school, and now on the court. Minor changes over the past couple years, losing one, gaining one. I was happy that the boys were playing this year again. 

Practices were Thursday nights from 8:30-9:30. I'd drop Cooper off and then one of the brothers would pick him up (so I could head to bed!) Games were Saturday mornings. Both practices and games were all at Joel P, which is nice and close. 

I was able to attend and video all the games ...
an undefeated season for the boys!

Here's the highlights ...

• Game #1 (12/2/2017)
• Game #2 (12/09/2017)
• Game #3 (12/16/2017)
• Game #4 (01-06-2018)
• Game #5 (01-13-2018)
• Game #6 (01-20-2018)
• Game #7 (01-27-2018)

...and here's my Cooper Compilation!

Keaton - JUNIOR Jazz

Keaton had enjoyed his sophomore year playing on the school team, but decided to not try out this year. He and Cameron are still working out in the 4th period basketball class, but cheering from the sidelines when it comes to games. Still wanting to get some playing in, they put together a team with friends and joined Junior Jazz ... and proceeded to blow away all the other teams!

I just caught up with Keaton and posted a few videos of his recent games on YouTube. Here are all the Keaton clips I could cram into one minute ... #keatonclips #juniorjazz

A post shared by BlackhamBall (@blackhamball) on Jan 21, 2018 at 8:01pm PST

Here's some Keaton Clips ... and you can see highlights from all the games, well, from six of the seven anyway. Unfortunately the last game landed at 7:00 in the evening on the same Saturday as Sweethearts, and as all the boys had been nabbed by girls as dates, they didn't make it to their seventh and final game.

This team picture is with their favorite teacher (from Sports Med) and is missing Charles. James's dad was the coach ... and they wore green EVERY game, whether they were listed first or not. They were the GREEN BEANS. I was sad to see the season end!