Golden Girls

SPOILER ALERT: If today's blog title doesn't give you a clue, it was a golden day for Assumption!

The girls took on rival Barneveld at 11 a.m. By rival I mean this is the 4th straight year we've played them for the Division 5 Championship and coveted Gold Ball. In 2013, we took the Gold Ball home. In 2014 and 2015, Barneveld did. Today, we took it back!

Left the house at 8 a.m. so we were in Green Bay in plenty of time for pregame warm-ups for basketball players and the Pep Band. Carter's last Pep Band performance! I'll have to watch the DVR'd game to see if he made it on TV again. I know I did! Got a few texts about that. (Will trade autographs for ice cream.)

To kick off the big game, the National Anthem was sung by one of Carter's classmates. That was cool. She did an amazing job. What a great mix of Assumption talent at the Resch Center today!

Championship games are the best with all the lights and player introductions. They get everyone pumped up. And we all were.

And our girls played their hearts out. We can never underestimate Barneveld, who beat us in a game in January. They came in ranked No. 1 in the state for D5 so our girls knew it would be a challenging game. They also knew they could win if they stuck to their game plan, avoided fouls and turnovers. And, easy as it sounds on paper, that is what they did.

As fans, we didn't feel comfortable no matter how big our lead was getting in the second half. When we played them a few months ago, we blew our nice big lead and lost. Today, though, the girls hung on and soundly defeated their rivals, 62-45! Unreal!

State Champs!

The Gold Ball is coming back to Assumption!

I was so happy for the girls, their parents, the coaches and fans. What an amazing experience to not only witness, but be a part of. What a great ending to that journey!

After a brief stop in Green Bay to visit some friends after the game, we headed back to Rapids for the 5 p.m. welcome home pep rally.

As is tradition for state champion teams in Wisconsin Rapids, the girls' bus was escorted to the school by a fire truck with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Had a great crowd greeting them and their trophy, too!

Carter and his good friend Olivia, who had an awesome final game today. So many girls who provided me with a "daughter fix". Good thing I have backups in place for a few years. This group will be hard to replicate, though.

Their 4-year high school hoops career in a nutshell: 2 Gold, 2 Silver. Not too shabby. At what point do we go from calling them awesome to Golden?

I think that point is now.

Well, done, Lady Royals!