The 12U Fairfax Stars girl’s team entered the Team Sol Super Regional this past weekend with high expectations. The team has been playing against 13 and 14 year old teams since early in the fall to prepare themselves to compete against the top tier of 12U teams. The Stars goal was not only the national bid available to them by reaching the championship of the tournament, but also to establish themselves as the top team in the region and bring home the gold medal! And bring home the gold they did, sweeping through the competition with a perfect 6-0 record and the tournament championship!!

Pool play began with a game against the Meade Youth Basketball team that featured a 6’3” center. The game started slowly and by half time the Stars had built a modest 6 point lead. The second half was a different story as the Stars unleashed a defensive fury and overwhelmed their opponent, holding them to 5 points for the half and coasting to a 56-21 victory.

The Stars then received a forfeit from the Arlington Pride, a team the Stars had defeated 81-6 the week before. This allowed the Stars to gain much needed rest for the upcoming games.

The final pool play game matched the Stars up against the Germantown Lady Panthers.

The Panthers were very determined and gave the Stars all they could handle in the first half, culminating in a 3 point lead at the half 23-20. The second half has belonged to the Stars all season and this game was no different. The Stars constant full and half court pressure simply proved too much to handle for an entire game. Once again the stellar defensive effort held their opponent to 2 points in the entire second half, and enabled them to cruise to a 58-22 victory.

Sunday began what would prove to be a long day for the Stars as the medal round started against a game Team Sol, a team that had finished 9th in the nation last year. With the core of the players from last years team staying back for another year at the 11 year old level, it was a very different team that the Stars faced this day and they were simply overmatched by the Stars size and speed. Sol gave a terrific effort and never gave up, but the Stars came away with another easy victory bolstered by great team defense.

The next two rounds would prove to be much different as the Stars would face much stiffer competition. First up, was the number one team out of the Maryland region, the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens too had taken advantage of the new age rule and were able to keep the core of last year’s 12U team intact and take another shot nationally at the 12U title. Facing a big, athletic team with a lot of experience, the Stars came out extremely determined to get their national bid. The Stars put constant pressure on the Raven players from start to finish and jumped out to an 18 point lead that the Ravens were never quite able to recover from. The team from Baltimore did make several mini runs at the Stars in the second half and some timely 3 point shots coupled with some very poor free throw shooting in the waning moments of the game brought the Ravens to within a few points several times. The Stars regrouped after each push by the Ravens and were able to defeat their opponent 66-61 to earn their bid to nationals and a spot in the tournament championship.

The championship game would pit the Stars up against their long time rival and national powerhouse, Alana Beard’s Futures (formerly Team Excel). The Future’s, coming off two consecutive top ten finishes nationally, would prove to be a formidable foe. Once again however the Stars were ready to play and jumped out to a double digit lead that the Future’s simply could not overcome. Realizing that the Future’s liked to play a fast paced

full court game, the Stars concentrated on their half court zone pressure defense that would make the Futures play a walk up game….the tactic worked for the majority of the game until the Future’s picked up their full court pressure about half way through the second half and stormed back to within 2 points. The stars showed great character in weathering the storm and after a time out to regroup, came back out strong and pushed the lead back to 9 with their own transition offense kicking into full gear. From that point on, the Futures never made another serious push and the Stars had their gold medal and the early season bragging rights for the region. Great job ladies! Congratulations on a job well done!!