Sports Articles, March-April 2002

There are a lot of homeschoolers in all sorts of sports; it's not true that you have to go to school to be able to play!

Feb. Sports Report by Alex-a basketball win
March Sports Report by Alex-national tournament
Kalamazoo Aquatic Club by James
Dog Show in Detroit by Jack
return to March-April 2002 index

Brought to you by Alex Haltom

COUGAR JV TEAM SHOCKS HUDSONVILLE!

The Kalamazoo Cougars, the Homeschool League JV basketball team, stunned Hudsonville, the top ranked and undefeated team in the conference. After struggling through the first portion of the season the team seems to have finally found its groove and appears to be peaking at tournament time. The superb performance by the team was due mostly to its defensive intensity which did not allow penetration by the Hornets. The Cougars also played excellent perimeter defense out for a 1 3 1 zone which never allowed the Hornets to get into a shooting rhythm.

''The guys played with great hustle and heart the entire game and never let Hudsonville into into it'' said an ecstatic Kalamazoo coach Luke Vanderhill.

Josh Vanderhill led all scorers with 19 points to go along with 10 rebounds while Kevin Little chipped in with 10 points. Alex Haltom led all players in assists with 6 to go along with 5 points and 5 rebounds.

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Brought to you by Alex Haltom

The 11th Annual National Homeschool Basketball Championship was the week of March 6th to 9th in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 170 varsity teams from 16 states, including the Kalamazoo Homeschool League Varsity basketball team, were in the tournament.

I am on the JV team, but I wanted to watch our varsity team play, so they made room for me. All of the teams were pretty good except for one team that was really good. Their team name was 'Storm' and they were from Oklahoma. We played them and lost by fifty three points. The closest game that the Storm played they won by forty points.

The Kalamazoo Cougars won two games and lost three. We had pretty good defense and rebounded well. We also made out three-point shots about forty percent of the time. A couple of our best players were Micah Klaassen, a senior and our top guard, and Nate Comphuis, a junior forward and our top scorer.

We beat Montgomery, Alabama, in our first game. Then we got flattened by the Storm. In our third game, we lost to Pearland, Texas, and in our fourth game we lost to a team from Montana. We finally won our fifth game, beating Fayetteville, Arkansas. However, we did not win enough games overall to go on.

Part of the fun was the drive to Oklahoma. We drove two minivans. One van had a Gamecube and a DVD player. We blew a fuse! It took 22 hours of driving. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Oklahoma City, and all the games were within ten miles of the hotel. I ate a lot of cheese pizza while I was there.

For more information about the National Homeschool Basketball Championship: www.homeschoolbasknat.com

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I took my dog, Metler, to our first benched dog show in Detroit March 16th and 17th. A benched show is like a normal dog show, but the dog (and therefore you) has to stay at the show, on the bench with the rest of the dogs of your breed, until the show is over. The shows can last a long time, meaning you can be there for up to hours doing nothing. However, they usually give you free food, but it is almost always doughnuts and coffee. Most of the time I was there I was wandering around, eating my Free Food, watching Search-and-Rescue dog demos, and looking at different shops.

I did get about five minutes of ringtime, however, and won two ribbons, Second Prize and Reserve Winners, which meant I got second-best Cardigan Welsh Corgi dog.

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