Joining the West Jordan Jaguars

Collin, Gage, Preston, Elder, Victor

Kaden, Colton, Nash, Michael, Carter

There has been a lot of turmoil in the schools this year, with the boundary changes and new schools being set up. Blanchard is stepping down as head coach at CHHS, and West Jordan lost their coach to the new high school opening next fall. Happily, the new head coach at West Jordan jumped right in and set up a Bantam program. Colton tried out and was one of three 7th graders to make the 8th grade team. Colton, Collin and Gage have been playing together for a while, but for all the rest, this was a completely new team. They had practices once or twice a week, and played in two leagues. Murray during the week, and the Bantam league on Saturday.

Here's one highlight reel I made ...

All the Murray games were held at Riverview Jr. High. The original schedule is listed below, but there were some switch-ups. The February 6th game was postponed due to extreme snow (the schools had all closed for the day) ... which was good, as Colton was out of town and would have missed that game anyway. 

Jan 9, 2019 ..... Murray 

Jan 16, 2019 ... Titans 

Jan 16, 2019 ...  East

Jan 23, 2019 ... All Poly 

Feb 6, 2019 ... Buff Ballers

Feb 13, 2019 ... East 

Feb 20, 2019 ... Stallions 

March 6, 2019 ... Stallions 

March 13, 2019 ... East

Bantam schedule and standings ...

This team was really just set up for this one season ... but they did come together again in the Summer to play up at the Utes camp tournament too.  This was lead by another Coach Farmer! Not Coach Phil (Farmer), although Coach Phil was helping out coaching the 7th grade team. I was happy Colton was able to get #5 for his number ;)

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 - 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 and the Winter Wolves (6thGrade)

Colton and the Wolves are continuing to play during the official basketball season. Winter Wolves! They are participating in two leagues, the Dimple Dell Superleague (middle division) and the Murray TopFlight League

Dimple Dell 6th Grade Saturday Superleague

• Game 1. December 3, 2016.Wolves vs SLC Future
• Game 2. December 10, 2016. Wolves vs Skyridge
• Game 3. December 17, 2016. Wolves vs South Valley Legends 
• Game 4. January 7, 2017. Wolves vs Lehi
• Game 5. January 28, 2017. Wolves vs East
• Game 6. January 28, 2017. Wolves vs Bengals
• Game 7. February 4, 2017. Wolves vs Dash
• Playoff Game 1. February 11, 2017. Wolves vs Lehi
• Playoff Game 2. February 25, 2017. Wolves vs Sonics

Murray TopFlight Tuesday League

• Game 1. January 10, 2017. Wolves vs Olympus
• Game 3. January 24, 2017. Wolves vs Stallions
• Game 4. January 31, 2017. Wolves vs A-Train
• Game 5. February 7, 2017. Wolves vs Premiere
• Game 7. February 21, 2017. Wolves vs Murray

With Colton playing on two teams, both playing in a Saturday league, I was concerned about game conflicts. Happily, HE didn't have any (I had some, when Colton's team and Cooper's team would play at the same time). On Tuesday nights, the high school had their games, and I was afraid I'd miss most of Colton's Murray games, but again, we lucked out with late games (9:00 start), which I usually hate, but was happy with here, because then I could still come after Callahan's game finished up. 

We also played in Dimple Dell's Christmas Tournament 

(Game 1, Game 2, Game 3)

Colton - Spring Wolves

Spring Season is here! We lost one player from our winter team (Max rejoined his former team "The Scorpions" who we will play against) and so we added Issac. That's right. ANOTHER Issac. We already had two on the team ... now we have three! With 10 players, Coach Farmer generally plays the boys in sets of five. Colton, Gage, Isiah, Kiony, Gordon are one set, and the other is the Issacs and Collins (we have two Collins too!). 

Practices are still Friday nights, 6:30-8:30 at SLCC. Again, a HUGE thanks to the Berlin family for letting Colton catch rides! We are playing in two spring leagues, a Saturday Superleague  with Gene Fullmer (schedule/stats), and a Tuesday one with Murray Parks and Rec (schedule/stats).

You can catch all the highlights ...
Games 1&2
Games 3&4
Game 5 (Rebels)
Game 6 (Grizzlies)
Game 7 (Scorpions)

... and the Murray Games
Two games each week, always against the same teams. A-train and Future

April 4
April 12
May 3
May 10

Colton clips... Love my little basketball boy!

A video posted by BlackhamBall (@blackhamball) on Apr 26, 2016 at 4:37pm PDT

After the regular season, there were playoffs ... we played the Grizzlies again, and then ... a rematch against Mayhem. We'd already played them twice (games 3&4) ... lost one, won one. The boys really wanted to win the championship, but it wasn't meant to be. Mayhem came out strong, and our boys could NOT get a shot to drop the entire first quarter. Finally, got some baskets and got close enough to make the end exciting, but couldn't clinch it.

Sometimes I think we need to take a picture BEFORE the final game (we can always take another "#1" one after if they win) ... the boys, especially Colton, were having a bit of a hard time smiling after the loss. On to Summer at Dimple Dell!

Colton - 4th Grade Grizzlies

After our Fall League experience (playing in the rec 3rd/4th division and dominating every game) we decided to try the boys in a superleague. 4th grade division, as Colton and a few of the other boys were 4th graders (the rest were in 3rd, with Austin still in 2nd). Coach decided on the Murray Topflight League.

The games were Thursday nights ... often late (8:00 or 9:00 on a school night!) and this league had divisions (upper/lower) and yikes! This was the SUPERleague! These teams were good! And the competitiveness was high. Waiting for our first game, a yelling match ensued between coaches/refs and even parents until the game was called and people were ejected. It was a little intimidating.

The schedule ...

• January 7 - Elite
• January 14 - Hoosiers
• January 21 - Murray
• January 28 - Cyprus
• February 4 - Titans
• February 18 - Olympus

Only one win in the regular season (right in the middle, vs Murray). In the playoffs, we faced Murray again (and won again) and advanced. Unfortunately, the next playoff game conflicted with our Junior Jazz Tournament game. Our boys were winning, when five of them had to take off to the other game, leaving just four players to attempt to hold the score (they weren't able to). So that was the end of the Murray league.

Here's the highlights from the regular season ...

 ... and here's the first playoff game (a win!)