by Recently while sitting at my desk in my room, I saw a fox lope across the backyard. We haven’t seen any foxes around for quite some time. When I mentioned seeing one to Joyce, she said she and Kari had noticed a lot of fox scat when walking around the place earlier in the day. That may mean there are more than one.
Tuesday of last week we found out about 11 a.m. that Abigail and her team would be playing an El Paso team in a bi-district playoff game in Andrews that evening. Andrews is about halfway between El Paso and Amarillo. Kari and Chris couldn’t go because Chris had to work and they both needed to go trick-or-treating with Rebecca so Joyce and I made the trip. Abigail was surprised to see us.
The Rebels got off to a slow start in the first game and lost it something like 25-17. Abigail got to start and in the second game she hammered the El Paso team with several kill shots, including the winning point. It was a close game as was the third game which the Rebels also won. El Paso came back and won the fourth game to tie things up and force a fifth game to decide a winner. Fifth games only go to 15 instead of the normal 25 so a team falling behind has less time to make up the point differential. The Rebels got behind and were down 8-6 at one point. Somehow they rallied and went on a run of six unanswered points. From that point they traded points a couple of times with El Paso but Tascosa was too far ahead for that to change the outcome and cruised to a solid win. Joyce and I enjoyed the game and are glad we were there in spite of getting home well past our bedtime.
The following Friday, Abigail and her team traveled to Vernon to play an Arlington team. Kari, Rebecca, Joyce and I rode together. The team they faced was better than any I’ve seen play. Abigail said they are perennial state championship contenders and I have no trouble believing that. The Rebels played as hard as they could and held their own at times but they were simply outmatched and we were back on the road to Amarillo in no time.
The Arlington team was a very aggressive opponent before the game ever began. Before a game teams take turns warming up practicing their kill shots. Then both teams take the floor on opposite sides and practice serving. When it was time for that portion of the warm up, each time went to their end of the court. This is normal. Both sides practice serves and retrieve ball to hit back the other way in the process. The Arlington girls each had a ball when they two teams first lined up and they all simultaneously fired their ball at the Rebels. And I do mean at. They weren’t trying to serve normally. They were trying to hit the other team. Rebels were bobbing and weaving for dear life. From that first volley on it was a normal warm up.
it is standard practice once the warm up period is over and it’s time to start the game for each time to line up along the back line of their side of the court, then run along the back line, down the side line and across in front of the net. The teams are running opposite directions and they slap hands and wish each other good luck, or something. Not these aggressive little tarts. Instead of circling along the lines they charged directly at the net as the Rebels crossed in front of the net on their side. Once they got to the net, then they slapped hands, etc. but the effect of the charge was even stronger than the warm up volley.
We have had a colorful fall for our part of the world. Yellow, mostly, which is only fitting. Here on SA we had a lot of trees turning yellow at the same time with a few reds here and there. I think the color peaked earlier in the week but there are a few that will show out more in the next week or so.