It's basketball season already and this one proves to be another building year at VCUQ. The girls' basketball team lost quite a few players from last year who graduated, but change and new challenges are constant. On to victory, right?
Speaking of changes, head coach Jesse Ulmer stepped down this season to devote more time to his newest and most important occupation of being a new dad. Congratulations to Jesse and Felicity and welcome to sweet little Dakota Lilly! Jesse will be missed tremendously. He has been the fire under these very inexperienced players for the last few seasons and, along with his wife Felicity, has built this program from the ground up. Brett now has the responsibility of carrying on and taking these women over new hurdles as the new head coach.
The Lady Rams started their season off this last Sunday with a game against The American School of Doha. Now to understand why a university is playing a high school team you will need to read my previous posts about this remarkable women's basketball program. These women have come so far and continue to amaze me at their strength, courage, and tenacity, even in the face of much more experienced opponents. They started Sunday's game with five players and increased to six by the end of the first quarter. That didn't give much room for resting players and rotating fresh ones in. Their work was definitely cut out for them.
Yes, they were tired.
Since ASD has won every time these two teams have met, the girls were just hoping to compete with themselves and do better than last year.
There are a couple of new players this year and they have a little more experience than previous team members have had when they joined. There was a positive spirit in the team the whole night and they kept fighting, even after one of the girls had to sit out most of the second half because of illness.
The excitement brought out the ASD gym cat who patrols the bleachers for snacks and entertainment.
