Monday, June 17, 2019

VIKINGS SWEEP 4TH SQT POOL PLAY IN A ROW

From Coach Poynter:

On a very windy day the Vikings returned to LD Bell HS to compete in their final State Qualifying Tournament of the season. Even though we qualified several weeks ago, we still enter subsequent SQT's and use them as "high speed practices" to stay sharp for the state tournament 6/28-29. We are very fortunate to have First Rate, Inc. as our long-time primary sponsor and this allows us to enter multiple tournaments without too big of financial impact on our players and their families.

The Vikings finished the regular season 15-2, including winning the last 10 games played in a row. The two losses early in the season were by a combined 3 points and prior to our having some of our starters available from the track team. So by any measure it has been a successful regular season.


Although we won all 3 games Saturday, I think the players would tell you we did not play (or coach) to our capability.  This team has a lot of talent and can win most of the games it plays at local tournaments. The challenge we face going forward is to play at the peak of our ability every time we step on the field. At the State Championship, every team has been "vetted" and qualified by beating other good teams. At our best we are capable of competing with anyone in the State. So the challenge to the players and the coaches is to practice the next two weeks at our peak performance level so that becomes our routine. As I tell the kids, it is all about us now; how we practice and play between now and the end of the month will define just how good we can be!

Last Saturday we gave the kids their uniforms to keep as acknowledgement of their hard work. We will practice Tuesday this week (6:30-8:30 pm at Cravens). Please note we will NOT be using the north parking lot any longer this month as it is being used for construction staging. We will park and enter Cravens from the baseball end (south). On Wednesday, my wife Peggy and I will host the players and coaches at our home for burgers/swim from 6-8pm a tradition before the state tournament we started many years ago! Peggy has let me spend from early March to early July the last 18 years coaching the Vikes. It does limit other things we can do together during this time period and she is so supportive as she knows how much I love the players and the game!

We will know by this Sunday evening who we will play against on 6/28 in Pool Play. At that time I will post that and various other items such as our team travel itinerary and a site map for the fields at Veteran's Park in College Station. We will have two very important practices that week on Monday and Tuesday evening before we leave Thursday for State. GO VIKES! VFND.   

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