D-Jugend: Meet the team

About this team - how it all began:

We started coaching this team in April 1998. In the beginning the team consisted of only 6 girls born in 1986 (Tina, Fredi, Sabrina, Wera, Vanessa, Franzi). As for the upcoming season players born 1986 or later were allowed to play in this league we tried hard to find some other young ladies who were interested in learning how to play basketball.

With Evelyn (born in 1988), a tall girl who already played the year before for our club in an "10 years and under league" we added another talent to our squad. In the next weeks and months we only found two other "86ers" (Hilde and Mellie) who wanted to learn playing basketball, so we started practise with a small group of persons.

After the summer break we recognized two other young talents in the "10 and under league" team of our club, so in course of the season Julia (born in 1988) and Katharina J. (born in 1989) joinded our practise once a week and played in some games for us.

Very late in the season Daniela and Katharina S., both born in 1987 started playing basketball and practising with us although they could not play in the last games. But both of them played a major role in the following D-Jugend year for their team together with Evelyn, Julia and Katharina J.

As we had a long way to go with lots of games waiting for us and not too many players, we couldn`t dispense with anybody. But we also started into a very exciting and successful season we enjoyed very much.

Regular season:

We started the season with a tough game in Kirchheim. We trailed in halftime but in the second half the team started playing defense and each of the girls found her self-confidence. That`s why we won.

But there were more difficult games to come! So we lost in the Vorrunde (that is regular season games till the christmas break) to Viernheim and Schwetzingen depending on the inexperience of our team. Most of the players still hadn`t recognized their talent and their chance to have a successful year.

For all that we didn`t have serious problems with other teams in our league. So we finished the Vorrunde in third place.

We explained to the girls that first two teams would qualify for championships and we believed we should be there. And they trusted us.

So we started an unbeaten run in the Rückrunde (=regular season games after the christmas break) and the girls showed to the teams of Viernheim and Schwetzingen how serious they were to archieve their goal. And this goal was winning.

After loosing by as many as 20 points three months ago on their own court the TG-Schlümpfe won a tough battle against Viernheim in foreign gym. Same fate waiting for Schwetzingen`s girls who were beaten by 28 points in Schwetzingen after they defeated us 51:61 only 14 weeks before.

After all we finished regular season in first place. Happy about this success but hungry for more we looked forward to the following championships.

Badische Meisterschaften:

The championship tournament (called "Badische Meisterschaften") was settled in Freiburg and four teams were allowed to participate: USC Freiburg, TV Gundelfingen, TG Sandhausen and TSV Viernheim.

Basketball championships for teams of this age in Germany consist not only of a basketball tournament but the participating girls also have to show their athletic skills and their ballhandling abilities.

We won the ballhandling contest and finished second in the basketball tournament but we lost the athletics. In total the Sandhausen team finished second.

As the top two teams advanced we got to the next level!

Baden-Württembergische Meisterschaften:

This championship tournament is for the four best teams in the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg (=this region of Germany).

Besides of basketball we had to compete again in athlethics, a ballhandling contest and this time even swimming! And again we lost athletics although we worked hard between the championships to improve. But we finished second in swimming and ballhandling and this time we even won the basketball tournament.

But counted back we only earned second place again.

Die Schlümpfe:

The secret about this self-given team name began severel years ago when we were searching for a not too suspicious name for our full court press. Someone had the idea to call it "Schlumpf" like the little blue and fast smurfs you know from TV. So we decided to use this well-known name also for this year`s full court press.

The girls liked this name so much that they began to call themselves with different names of these cartoon heroes like "Schlaubi-Schlumpf", "Torti-Schlumpf" and "Baby-Schlumpf". Soon we were known as "die Schlümpfe" and so we adopted this team name.

Jugend trainiert für Olympia - Landesfinale:

"Jugend trainiert für Olympia" is a tournament for school teams and not for basketball clubs. Normally we would not be responsible for such a tournament.

But most of our players visit the same school and the school team consisted of our players besides of one person. That`s why we also participated and coached this team too.

"Landesfinale" is the final round of this tournament where the best eight school teams of Baden-Württemberg compete against each other. The level is comparable to Baden-Württembergische Meisterschaften.

We advanced to this final round by winning two other regional school tournaments before without having any problems in beating those schools.

But this one started with lots of problems for us. Already in the first game Fredi was knocked down and hurt her arm. She couln`t play in this game any more, set out the next game but tried to play the remaining games although she was very much handicapped. Because of this we only had a tied first game.

In the second game against Tübingen we got big help from Moni Schmidt who usally plays handball and not basketball. She was the only player who does not also play for our club team although we loved to have her there.

In the third game and in the semi final we still could not find our rhythm and we had very close games which we could win with lots of effort and a little bit of luck.

After all in the championship game against Freiburg we showed our strength so we beat them easily with Vanessa and again Moni scoring most of the points.