The Savannah Youth Goalball Tournament, held from September 19-21 in Savannah, Georgia, was a huge success for our Girls Goalball team. While the team didn't have any hardware to show for their efforts, they did have impressive stats from a barely second-year squad.

As a team:

• Faced an impressive onslaught of 341 total shots against the Lady Cobras (an average of 57 shots against per game).
• Defensively, the team only allowed 12 goals, a defensive success rate of 96.48%.
• The team mercy-ruled their opponent in three of the six games; 50% of their opponents were shut down before the end of regulation.
• The Lady Cobras played against the Canadian youth Paralympic team and kept the score to 3-2. FSDB was beating them until the end.
• FSDB outscored its opponents by a combined 26 points. They only had three unanswered points during the entire tournament.

Individually:

• The three most significant contributors were Lily James, Aspen Henderson, and Alina Davila-Tirado.
• Lily, our team's captain, has a fire-like competitive drive, an unparalleled work ethic, and a leaderlike mentality that drives our success on the court. As our starting center, Lily came in contact with approximately 257 throws against the team and successfully blocked 251, giving her a defensive (blocking) success rate of 97.7%. Additionally, Lily scored 12 of our 38 goals, giving her credit for 31.6% of our points.
• Aspen, still a young 7th grader, is an extremely hardworking and driven athlete with a whip of an arm and can accurately hit targets better than most. As our starting left winger (predominantly, will play any position), Aspen successfully blocked 34 of the approximately 36 direct attacks she faced (Note: A direct attack does not come into contact with the center). Her defensive success rate was 94.4%. As the team's target shooter, Aspen scored 14 of the 38 goals, giving her credit for 36.8% of our points.
• Alina, an aggressive right-winger with a beautiful, choppy cross-court shot, is the "brains" of the starting lineup. Her awareness of game tactics and shot clock management is remarkable. Alina successfully blocked 19 of the approximately 23 direct attacks she faced, giving her a defensive success rate of 82.6%. She also scored 6 out of the 38 points.
• Our other three girls (Jazmine West, Jermeka Jones, and Jaliyah Dorcent) also saw some action, but it was more limited. For two of them, this was the first time they had ever played against an opponent. All three girls helped add points toward the team's overall point total for the tournament. 

"I am so very proud of our team!" said Head Coach Justyn Keller. "Last year, Coach Scarbrough and I found a ragtag group of undisciplined girls without foundational skills."

The girls started from the ground up, working to eliminate the negative influences and rid the program of detrimental habits. As a result, the team began to build a beautiful culture based on the following five principles: resiliency, effort, attitude, cooperation, and honor.

"These girls have worked their tails off, and it shows," continued Keller." Despite their minimal game experience and less than five weeks of practice, these girls literally knocked their competition into submission and advanced to the medal rounds. "Thanks to the absolutely tireless devotion of Coach Scarbrough, I am extremely excited to continue our preparation for Washington and Nationals in Texas," stated Keller.

"Lastly, but certainly not least, I would be amiss to not highlight the contributions of others like Serenity Brown, our team manager, and Ms. Martha Stirrat, our wonderful volunteer coach!" praised Keller.

Go Cobras!