Connecticut Trip Beneficial

New London, Connecticut - The Saratoga Sparks traveled three hours south to New London Connecticut this weekend to compete in the 2008 Connecticut Storm Mother’s Day Tournament. This trip has been circled on the calendar for some time according to coach Turner. “We won’t really know what we have here until it is tested by great competition. This tournament has always attracted the best teams in the northeast and we are hoping we can hold our own with the elite. Our Sturbridge trip showed us that we had a lot of work to do before we were ready to travel to Penn State. This trip will hopefully demonstrate that we have made some improvements towards achieving our team goal of winning at Happy Valley”

The first test of the weekend came in the form of the Connecticut Heat. The Sparks, fresh out of the car, were not what you would call “game ready”. Although they were physically in the gym, their minds were still traveling the speed limit on I-95, at least forty-five minutes behind their bodies....

The game got off to the slowest start in AAU Girls Basketball history. The game was scoreless for over six and a half minutes. “I didn’t know if we were playing great defense or horrible offense” shared Shenendehowa sophomore Andrea “Bam Bam” Mangione. “All I remember was that we were all running really fast and passing the ball to each other as often as we could... we really should have looked at the rim once or twice..., you know... and try to score, our coach told us that’s what the games about, scoring more than the other team” the brash young forward continued.

During the game the tournament site coordinator called the Hall in Springfield to inquire about what should be done with the basketball if the game remained scoreless. A spokes person for the Hall of Fame explained, “if neither team scores, it’s not a basketball game, it’s soccer, not only do we not want the basketball, we don’t want either team to ever visit the hall of fame.”

Eventually the Sparks took a 2-0 led with 9:57 remaining in the first half transforming the scrum on the floor into a basketball game as defined by the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.