Umpqua 91 Wenatchee Valley 53

Opened the first round of the Edmonds Winter Classic tonight with a 91-53 win over Wenatchee Valley. We've spent the better part of a week trying to improve our defense and I thought the extra work really showed tonight. The thing that I was most pleased about is that we did an excellent job of keeping up the defensive intensity even as we constantly subbed to keep fresh legs in the game. As a result, our defense created a lot of offense and we probably had close to a dozen fast breaks that could end up on the year end highlight DVD. For the first time this season we had five players score in double figures and we scored over 90 points for the fourth time in five games.

Almost as exciting as the tournament is the weather! The first big winter storm is blasting the Pacific Northwest which is eventually going to make travel back to Roseburg a challenge. Weather reports predict lots of snow most of the day tomorrow and Sunday followed by freezing temps for a couple days. We'll have to wait and see what happens but Linda's and my coaching instincts tell us to start preparing ahead of time and still have a backup plan just in case!