Eighth Graders Lead Saints into Overtime Thriller on Parents’ Night

By -
Our outstanding eighth grade basketball players finished out their regular season careers last Friday night against the undefeated Cougars from Cross of Christ. It has long been a tradition at Salem to dedicate the last home game of the season to the parents of the eighth grade class. Parents’ Night always brings lots of emotions, as the eighth grade athletes present their biggest advocates with a flower. Each eighth grader introduced their parents and gave them a heartfelt, personal thank you that was truly awesome! The basketball parents mean so much to the entire athletic program at Salem.
    Playing against the top team in our conference, our Saints played perhaps the most inspired game of basketball I have seen in all four of my coaching years at Salem. Led by eighth graders Griffin (18 points) and John (12 points), our Salem Saints went toe-to-toe all night long with a Cross of Christ team that had very good size and skill from multiple players. Getting the opportunity to play in their beloved gym one last time, all of our eighth graders made key contributions to force the game into overtime. Eighth grader Sophia started the game at wing and gave us very solid minutes with her textbook defensive stance and positioning within our excellent zone defense. Our other eighth grade starter, Reese, started and played the entire game at post, battling relentlessly all night long in the interior against a very skilled post from the Cougars. Reese did an excellent job of playing with his body to avoid fouls while also forcing their big post into foul trouble by sacrificing his body to take a key charge on the defensive end! Perhaps the most memorable moment of the night came from our fearless fourth grader (yes, FOURTH grader!) Gideon (6 points) who started and played the entire game against kids three to four years older than him! Gideon made three clutch baskets in three key moments of the game! He has truly incredible touch around the basket for a kid his age!
    With thirty seconds left in overtime, our Saints had the ball down by two points. Cross of Christ played tenacious man-to-man defense and did an excellent job of denying all our attempted passes in the last possession. Unfortunately for our Saints, the undefeated Cougars were able to escape with their perfect record intact as we were not able to get off a high quality shot in the waning seconds of overtime (final score: 36-38).
    Even though we came up short on the scoreboard, I could not have been more proud of the way our Saints battled on Friday. With their extraordinary performance, our special eighth graders made quite a memory in their final home game! The Saints made both their parents and coaches proud in the way they maximized their God-given abilities to represent their school and Lord!
    Our Salem A Team will not have a game next Friday as we prepare for the upcoming TCLGSAL tournament starting on Friday, February 8th.

By: Coach Travis Koester

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Messy Monday is Tonight!

By -
Our last Messy Monday will be held tonight from 6-7 pm at Salem. All families with children ages 2-5 are welcome to attend. Families will be charged $5 per child that attends and an activity or craft will be planned for the event. If you know of someone who is looking for a preschool or kindergarten for next year, please invite them. This is a wonderful opportunity to have them see our school and meet our awesome teachers.
Read more

Safety Drills

By -
Dear Parents, We wanted to make you aware of the safety drills that we participate in for the safety of our students and staff at Salem. Your student may mention these so we wanted to make you aware of them as well. We will be participating in 2 different types of lockdown drills with your children. The first type of lockdown is called a Lockdown with Warning. This would be used if there is a threat outside of the building. We would remain in our classroom with the doors locked, blinds pulled and no outdoor play with minimal travel in the halls especially by the main doors. We would continue with our schedule as planned without outside movement.  If it would be at the end of the day, we would keep your children safe here at school and not release them until the threat was gone. We would communicate this with parents through email or phone call as needed. The second kind of lockdown drill is a Lockdown with Intruder. We have set protocols to follow which include locking our classr
Read more

Winter Warm up Challenge

By -
  Salem Lutheran School will participate in the Power up Winter Warm up challenge from January 28th-February 14th.  Each classroom will track their "active activity" they participated in each day.  As shown below the classroom teacher will keep track if their students are active at recess, an extra activity, and at home.  Then at the end of the three weeks, based on our school-wide percentage Salem Lutheran will earn PowerUp Bucks that can be utilized for gym equipment. So parents help your children remember to stay activity these cold winter days! What is the PowerUp Winter Warm-Up Challenge? It’s a school-wide 3-week challenge that will get students up and active throughout winter! The challenge will also encourage students to find creative ways to become active indoors or outdoors! For example, learn new skills such as cross country skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating or playing at a PowerUp open gym. How the Challenge works: Each class will earn and track points
Read more