07 September 2012

Semi finals!

September 6th 
I am very excited as I am writing this. Why? Because the Aussie Gliders are through to the grand final!!!

Today we had to play against the USA girls in our semi final. It was a battle! What I kept in my head the entire game was how I felt after losing to them in the semi at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. I did not want to feel like that again. It was even at half time, then we had a fantastic run on them in the third (they only scored 2 points to our 12) but then we had a shocker of a forth quarter. We only scored 2 points but we kept them to 11. We won by 1 point!!


I have to apologise for celebrating early. I heard a buzzer go off, saw the missed shot, turned to look at my bench, heard the crowd roar and saw people on our bench jump up with happy faces. For some reason all those things in my mind equaled the end of the game with a win to us. My brain was in a semi-final fuzz. It wasn't until after I had already pushed to my bench when I realised we actually still had 1.9 seconds to go. Our possession. 1 point up. We just needed to catch the ball and hold onto it. SC caught it, she held it. The real end game buzzer went off and we were the winners! Time for the happy tears!!


The US girls have been the masters of come backs at this tournament. In their games against China and Canada they were able to come back from being behind to winning the game. Their focus has been amazing, they nailed several clutch shots and their full court press nearly had us!

With all that said, it doesn't matter if we win by a point or 20 - winning is winning. Australia won the semi! I am going to play in a Paralympic grand final. There is nothing more sweet than that. Hold on, what am I talking about!? Winning gold at a Paralympics will be the sweetest thing ever!

The Gliders are all smiles, and "booyeah!!" now, but we still have one more important job to do. So tonight we will be trying very hard to calm down in order to get a good nights sleep so it is all business tomorrow. We have played the Germans numerous times over the past few years. Each time we play them we have played like it is the Paralympic gold medal game. We have beat them prior to this tournament. We can do this!!

Thank you to all the support we are getting here in London and back home in Australia. We will need it tomorrow. It's going to be a great battle! May the best team win! Go Gliders!


Best luck to the Netherlands and the USA who will be playing off for the bronze tomorrow.

For a great photo and a write up about both semi final games - go to the official London 2012 website :-)

1 comment:

  1. Great work to you and the girls! Give them everything you have in the next game. Australia is proud!

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