Mitch Calvert
The Muskie junior girls’ basketball team finished the NorWOSSA regular season with a 16-10 win over Kenora here yesterday—but whether they wind up in first or second place remains out of their hands.
The black-and-gold, who finished with a 5-3 record, now need Kenora to beat Dryden (5-2) tomorrow in order to have a chance at finishing first and getting a first-round playoff bye.
If Kenora pulls off the upset, the Muskies having a shot at finishing first over the Eagles based on point differential.
“Honestly, I’d like to see us play in both games,” Muskie co-coach Dan Bird said, referring to the NorWOSSA semi-final and final slated for Nov. 7 in Dryden.
“That way we can use our bench and get all the girls fresh and into the game,” he reasoned.
Bird said they hope to get in an exhibition game prior to the playoffs, especially considering the long layoff between games.
The tight win over Kenora yesterday could have gone better—Bird saw some good things along with some things he hopes to shore up before making the trip to Dryden.
“In the first half, they were working the ball well, but you’d like them to speed up the tempo and the urgency,” he noted. “We’re going to work on breaking the press again because we know both teams [Kenora and Dryden] like to press.
“I think we’ll be in that championship game, so it’s just [about] preparing for it,” Bird stressed. “We had every opportunity to win up in Dryden [last Thursday], but we just couldn’t execute.”
Meanwhile, the Muskie senior boys’ volleyball team finished a winless regular-season yesterday, falling to Kenora in straight sets by scores of 25-21, 25-14, and 25-21.
Two close sets is a step in the right direction, and the squad will be looking to pull off a big upset at the NorWOSSA playoffs a week from Friday.
Both the senior girls’ basketball and junior boys’ volleyball matches with the Broncos still were in progress as of press time yesterday evening.
All four Muskie court teams teams were coming off a rough trip to Dryden last Thursday.
The senior girls’ basketball team (4-3) dropped a 50-36 decision to the Eagles and can finish no better than second in NorWOSSA play.
“They had a big first quarter, jumped out to a 19-10 lead, and we couldn’t recover,” Muskie coach Ian Simpson said. “In terms of
half-court offence, we’re doing OK, but we’re having trouble handling the press and getting into our offence.”
The Eagles have a quick team and are always in attack mode on both offence and defence, making it tough on the Muskies to move the ball up the floor while limiting turnovers against.
“[Dryden] press a lot and are coming at you all the time,” Simpson noted. “We had worked on our dribbling and passing, and our guards Kayla Windigo and Ashlee Nordstrom did a much better good job of bringing the ball up against the press, so much improved, but we still have a ways to go as a team.”
Lauren Gurski and Taylor Meyers once again led the way offensively with 13 and 12 points, respectively.
Despite the high-scoring affair, Simpson said the Muskies have looked good defensively all season.
“Dryden doesn’t usually score more than about 30 points against us, nobody does, our zone defence has usually been pretty stingy,” he insisted. “But, as I said, what’s been our Achilles heel is our inability to move the ball up the floor effectively.”
With Dryden already having clinched first place, the senior Muskie hoopsters will have to play Kenora in the semi-final on Nov. 7. With a win, they’ll then have to turn around and face a rested Dryden Eagles for the NorWOSSA title.
The junior girls, meanwhile, dropped a thrilling 30-26 loss to the Eagles last Thursday to all but guarantee they’ll finish in second place and have to face third-place Kenora in the semi-final.
“We kind of had a rough first quarter. We had lots of shooting opportunities but we were missing shots under the basket and they just weren’t going in for us,” Muskie co-coach Sarah Noonan conceded.
“We seemed to be working our offence and things were happening, but the ball wasn’t going in.”
The juniors once again got off to a slow start, trailing 8-2 after one quarter, but stayed with the Eagles the rest of the way—closing the gap to six overall, but could get no closer.
The junior Muskies have been notorious for comebacks late in games, but have made things hard on themselves by getting behind the eight ball early and Noonan said they hope to correct that going into the playoffs.
Erika Moffitt had a team-high eight points.
Both boys’ volleyball teams lost in straight set to the host Eagles last Thursday.
The seniors fell by scores of 25-15, 25-18, and 25-14 while the juniors lost 25-12, 25-22, and 25-12.
