Murakami Spring 2009 update

Riki Update - March 20, 2009

Dear Friends, Family and Fans:

After being ousted in the first round by eventual CIF Southern Section I-AA champion Cajon, Riki’s 2008-09 season came to an official end last night at the RUHS Girls Basketball Banquet held at the National Sports Grill in Torrance. Not only did we get nearly perfect attendance from the girls in the program (32 out of 35 players with 85 persons in attendance (Jeff planned and organized the event), but we were pleasantly surprised with the announcement that Riki, along with teammate Ella Mason, was selected to the second team, All Bay League by the Bay League coaches! We are very proud of Riki and this affirmation by league coaches will hopefully drive her during the grueling off-season.

Speaking of which, Riki’s RUHS team will begin 5-week Spring league play on Saturday, March 28^th (Riki’s 15^th birthday) in the Beverly Hills league. She is currently in weight training three days a week at RUHS and is supplementing this with “kettlebell” core training twice a week in Artesia. (Russian) Kettlebell training was suggested by a friend, WLAC coach Colleen Matsuhara (thanks, Colleen!) and was confirmed by her school trainer. For more information on Riki’s trainer in Artesia, check out: www.ndsathletics.com.

Redondo will play in the Swish tournament (one of the few high schools to do so) on April 17-19 in Orange County. This will be a challenge given that the top-club teams in the area (read: all-star) teams will be competing. This will prepare RUHS for their summer…

RUHS’ summer will involve extensive traveling:

Monday- Thursday, July 6-9

End of the Oregon Trail Tournament (Portland, OR) – another “viewing” tournament featuring club teams from across the country

More info: http://www.eotbasketball.com/tournaments.htm

Friday-Sunday, July 10-12

Swift Summer Shootout (Orange County) – club and high school competition

Thursday-Sunday, July 16-19 San Diego Classic - High School Tournament – Nation’s largest high school tournament (varsity and jv)

For more info: http://www.sandiegoclassic.com/

Wednesday-Saturday, July 22-25

River City Classic, (Memphis, TN) – like Oregon, mostly club tournament

(note: East Coast travel may require departure on 7/21) More info: http://www.eotbasketball.com/tournaments.htm (same as Oregon)

Riki’s August will be spent unwinding but also in two camps: the Marumoto Offensive Skills and Shooting Camp (August 3-7) and the Point GuardCollege (August 24-28) at ucla. For this reason, we have chosen not to put Riki onto any club/travel team for the second straight spring/summer but to focus on her conditioning and specific skills and to build a stronger team with the 15 returning varsity players (5 seniors-to-be, 8 juniors-to-be, and 2 sophomores).

Lastly, I would like to thank friend/fan James Chang for setting up a blog for Riki at: http://rikiupdate.blogspot.com/ where I will eventually post some photos and other stuff once I get the hang of it. For now, Jimmy has put up all of my posts.

Happy Spring!