Documenting the life of Quinlan Walsh
Quin’s first comp-league playoff game was a doozy last week. The Raptors were significant underdogs against Elite Orange, but made the opponent visibly nervous in the first few minutes by playing shut-down defense. Though the game ended with a 30-1 final score, it was clearly the Raptors’ best game of the season.
The tournament is of the double-elimination variety, which means the Raptors will get another game Tuesday against the Tarheels, a team they beat handily during the regular season.
This week was a tough one for the South Anchorage Raptors basketball team, which lost both games of a Saturday doubleheader. The first game was close and dramatic, ending at 15-12. The second game was a lopsided 32-2. On the bright side, Quin made great strides as a defender and rebounder this week.
Rumors spread from Quin’s mom to me that he wowed the fans (parents) at practice with impressive blocked shots. Constantly making his teammates look foolish in scrimmages by rejecting their scoring efforts. Word on the street is, one of his coaches was suddenly pleased to learn Quin can really jump.
This carried into both games Saturday, as Quin made one opponent forget to shoot after leaving the floor, which resulted in a traveling call and a turnover back to Quin’s team. While blocks were hard to come by, Quin altered many shots throughout both games, causing misses and leading to Raptor rebounds.
This is another area of great improvement for Quin, crashing the boards, that is. With points difficult to come by, Quin has been forced to abandon shooting to work on new fundamental skills. His defense, rebounding and passing skills are making great strides and he is a more complete player than ever before. He is also handling the tough losses without shedding a single tear, at least that I could see.
With one game left in the regular season, the Raptors are destined to be in the lower half of the standings in the nine-team league. They are guaranteed a spot in the end-of-season tournament, so there is a chance to pull off an underdog run for a championship.
Free throws may be the most underrated part of basketball, but not to Quin. He loves shooting free throws in practice and Saturday he swished a real one in a comp-league game.
Quin’s team went on to lose the game, but bounced back to win against another team on a rare double-header day of hoops. He wrapped up his busy, athletic day with a hockey game.
Quin made some nice, aggressive drives to draw fouls on a few occasions. Counting last weekend, he has made a handful of trips to the free-throw line before cashing in.
The loss came against the Twolves, who are one of the league’s top teams in the standings. The win in the second game was against the last-place team in the standings, known as the Young Boys.
Quin did manage to score multiple times in the win, with one such example below:
Having barely arrived in time to his second comp-league basketball game, Quin helped his South Anchorage Raptors roll to a 22-5 win over the Tarheels (1-4) on Saturday. It was the first win in three tries for the Raptors, who showed marked improvement in all phases of the game. The third and fourth graders defended very well, rabidly secured rebounds and even tickled the twine on a few shots.
Brantley Smith knocked down two 3-pointers, which were part of a superb shooting performance for him. Quin scored a couple of buckets. Forgive me if I’m mistaken, as official stats and rosters aren’t available, but I believe Logan Parret and Ezra Dinger also scored for the Raptors.
The Tarheels didn’t utilize a pressing defense the way the AK Elite Orange did last week, which helped the Raptors set up their offense. Having worked hard at practice all week on passing and cutting, it paid off on this play.
The six-week season continues Saturday with a double header. The first game is against TWolves Elite and the second is against the Young Boys. The TWolves are one of the top teams in the league and the Young Boys are off to a slow start.
Quin is expected to play in both games, unless his hockey heroics cause delay, as they almost did Saturday. The multi-sport athlete sandwiched his basketball game between two hockey games, both of which were victories. Here is a shootout goal Quin scored in the second game to contribute to an overtime win:
After three winters of rec-league basketball, Quin made his first start Saturday in a game in which score was actually kept on a scoreboard, wins and losses were tracked in official standings and coach’s lineups weren’t prioritized by equal playing time for all.
As for the score part, Quin’s South Anchorage Raptors only scored one point on a technicality, which means his team didn’t manage to put the ball in the basket once against the AK Elite Orange squad. The Orange put the ball in the hoop many times and used a swarming defense that the Raptors were not prepared to face. The final score is listed online as 8-1, but it was more like 38-1.
Despite the final result, there was plenty of good to report. The Raptors played hard and hustled from start to finish, while playing tough defense and rebounding at a decent skill level. Quin even started showing signs of anticipation and was disrupting passing lanes well. There were very few decent shots attempted by the Raptors (Quin got two good looks), due to an inability to secure the ball consistently and move the ball into open space. Most Raptors’ possessions ended with a steal by the Orange.
The comp league consists of nine teams full of third and fourth graders. Quin, who is nine, is in third grade, but is one of the tallest kids on the court. He missed his team’s first game, so the season is two weeks old. Early results indicate there are three good teams: AK Elite Orange, AK Elite Black and a team simply listed as GBD.
Quin’s next game is Saturday, against the Tar Heels, a team that hasn’t scored a total of 20 points in three losses. So, the Raptors will go from facing one of the best teams in the league to one of the worst.
Quin’s first comp league begins in 2025. I will be documenting his progress here.
