Matthew Monday: Basketball Shooting Tournament

There hasn’t been much on the Matthew front to report lately but there was something back in November that I’ve been meaning to post.

As I mentioned back in October, Matthew decided to play soccer this year instead of basketball.  Well, as expected, the St. Rita soccer team is horrible.  Two years ago they didn’t win a game.  Last year Matthew played basketball, and the soccer team again didn’t win a game.  So far in the first halve of this year’s season—it gets divided by winter with a first half autumn and second half spring—they didn’t win a game.  In the meantime, Matthew had improved in basketball and wished he had joined the team.

But back in November, separate from the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), there was a nationwide basketball shooting contest.  It was essentially foul shots, though the younger grades were a step closer than the foul line.  Each school would pick the best two or three for each grade, send them to a local competition (Staten Island, in this case), the winners would go to a regional competition, and those winners would go for the national.

It was one day in early November that Matthew came home from school and said he had won the basketball shooting contest at his school for his grade.  I really didn’t understand the national tournament yet so I was confused.  But I have to admit I didn’t believe he had won any kind of basketball shooting contest.  He could barely reach the basket two years before and he hadn’t practice since.  Well, he did win his school competition, even over the ones on the basketball team.  And so he made it as the school representative for fourth grade at the regional.

At the regional he was excellent.  He was something like 15 of 20 in the first round, and a little less than that in the second.  Unfortunately there’s not going to be much to show you because—mea culpa—I muffed the pictures and film.  I think I screwed up initially and then my phone battery died.  But here’s what I did take.  First a still picture of Matthew of Matthew getting the ball at the foul line.

And here’s a four second video of Matthew taking a shot.  The camera stops before the ball reaches the basket but I do think it went in.

Finally Matthew wound up in third place for the fourth graders.  Now that is third place for all of Staten Island, and we at Staten Island have a population for nearly 500,000.  That’s the size of a small city.  Here’s a picture of Matthew with his third place medal.

As you can bet, he wants to play basketball next year.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention.  Third place does not move on in the competition.  Only the first place winners.