Our Season

Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls from all across the world, and thank you to tuning into another fun and informative blog on Life of a Student Athlete, written by the one and only, Austin Hopcia.  In today's blog we are going to talk about some High School Basketball, possibly some college basketball, and we will talk about my up and rising biggest fan that has recently appeared into my life. So the winter season is upon us which means another fun filled basketball season. The Alden Varsity Basketball season is underway and the team had a hot start to begin the season. They started the season with a huge win over Class A opponent West Seneca East. My friend plays on this team and as you know there was a lot of trash talking going on, on twitter the night before the big game. Obviously we prevailed big time in arguably the best game played in Alden History.  That weekend we played in the annual Tip-Off Tournament coming off that big tune up win.  Last year the JV Basketball team won the tournament starting their success after finishing with a 14 and 4 record.  Most of the guys from that team are now up on varsity, hoping to translate that success to this year.  The Varsity team last year finished in third after losing in the first round to Iroquois, the eventual winner of the tournament.  This year it would be different.  We started off playing Orchard Park, who joined the tournament for the first time, replacing Maritime Charter School.  We started pretty slow, but in the second half we played phenomenal.  Moving on to the Championship for the first time in a while for a varsity Bulldogs team here in the Tip-Off Tournament.  Coming into this game, we didn't know which team would show up for us.  Let me explain it to you like this, Alden basketball isn't that good.  Sure we have our moments, but think of it like this.  We're like the Buffalo Bills in a sense.  Probably the most inconsistent team ever.  And it's always been like that.  I remember when I was in 8th grade.  We played a great game against Lackawanna at home and beat them, and on the bench after the game I was talking with some of the guys, and we were all saying how we couldn't wait to get a chance at Cleve-Hill again, the team we had lost to earlier in the year.  A team that we've never beat.  We had them the following Friday, but first we had to play Lackawanna again the next Monday at their place.  And we got killed.  It was shocking.  Like after what we did just three days before, and then that, I don't think I'll ever forget that.  We also ended up getting killed by Cleve-Hill again later that week.  Anyways, we had this big game plan prepared for them and their two big stars.  We were going to run a triangle and two on them, and we only had one day to learn it and get ready for the next day.  So the game went just as we hoped, I think.  We stopped their fast break that they loved to do.  And we were only down by two going into the half.  We came out in the third quarter on fire and firing on all cylinders, dominating that quarter and maybe even putting the game away.  We did end up winning the tournament, and off to a hot 3 and 0 start, which a lot people wouldn't have expected.  The next week meant the start of league play, which is more important than any tournament championship.  And it has been rough since that tournament.  It's like we are having a championship hangover, but I don't know why because we haven't done anything.  We have now dropped 4 in a row.  And every single one has been a blowout.  Once one mistake happened it's like the bottom just falls out.  And the turnovers, oh my goodness, the turnovers.  We have to be averaging over 20 a game these last four.  Like what is going on.  And it is so frustrating, getting blown out every game.  Especially when we lost to Holland, it was just utter disappointment.  Currently this season has been just utter disappointment.  At least the good thing is, is that it is a long, long season.  And we do have a lot of time to work it out, as long as we don't panic and throw it all away.  We just got to keep working hard, and we have one more preparation non-league game before the league starts again.  We play Roy-Hart on December 28th a team both JV and Varsity beat last year.  Now that biggest fan I was talking about was Austin Palizay.  He is a die-hard Austin Hopcia fan.  He even has a t-shirt with my face on it, with my number on it, and most of all, with my signature on it.  He's crazy and has so much spirit, passion, and love for me and it is awesome.  Who thought you could have a biggest fan that wasn't your family member at 16.  Never thought I'd have t-shirts with my face on it either, or signing autographs.  It's like I'm a celebrity, no big deal.  And that's my favorite part about basketball season, the fact that the fans are so close and they can get really involved and you can hear everything they say and do.  Hopefully their energy will also bring us back up to speed with our play in the near future to get us going again.