Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Diary Of A Baller: Jalen "Young One" Henriquez (New Jersey) Entry # 20


Hello Basketball World,

This weekend we played in the King of NY tournament. Our 1st game was on Friday. Thursday after Patrice I felt sick and did not go to school on Friday, I stood home resting and trying to get better. When it was time to go to the game, I figured I would try to go and at least support my teammates. The Traffic to get to the city was terrible; I got there with 2 minutes in the 1st half. I did not feel my best but I decided to try to help out against New Heights. They were skilled and very athletic team, and got to a 15-point lead over us throughout the game. Later in the second, we cut the lead down to about 4pts but came up short and lost by 8. The next day we played a team from Philly and we beat them by more than 30pts. I did not score a lot maybe 11pts or 12pts but we had fun. The next game was at 8, so we had time to eat in between games, which is always good.

Next we played BABC from Albany, in our last tourney in RI just last week they were stripped of their wins for cheating. This week was no different; if you have to have 3 grade expectations then it’s all good. One of my goals for next year is to play varsity, so in a way this helps playing against 17 and 18 year olds. Needless to say they beat us by 20, When there 15s were in it was a good game. As soon as the ringers checked in the game we didn’t have the bigs to compete. I want to send a shout out to my teammate Derek Wilson for holding his own in the frontcourt with their bigs. It was a frustrating game; I got a Tec and a flagrant, my 1st in many years of playing. We need to win more, still 3 tourneys and no chip. This is definitely the longest we’ve gone without getting one. This just makes us hungrier and hungrier to win one. My play is also not consistent; I need to have good games every game rather than most games.

Anyway, next week is Mothers Day weekend so we are off. I will continue to practice and train this week. Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, step mom and all the moms out there who do all that they do for their kids. Also to all those team moms that do so much for the teams, enjoy your special day but every day is mother’s day when you’re blessed.

“I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating”
-Sophocles…Young One Out