Lucas Punkari
So far so good for the Muskie senior boys’ basketball team in their quest to repeat as NorWOSSA champs.
The black-and-gold opened their 2011/12 campaign last week with a pair of victories, edging the host Dryden Eagles 46-40 on Wednesday before thumping the Kenora Broncos 56-19 here a day later.
“It’s always good to start off like that, especially with it being league games now,” Muskie head coach Bryce Coyle noted.
“We definitely have things we need to work on, of course, but we are happy to be going into the Christmas break with a 2-0 record,” he added.
Wednesday’s win over Dryden proved to be a tightly-contested affair through all four quarters, with both sides preventing one another from getting scoring chances.
“Both teams played a pretty strong defensive game, and it was some tough sledding out there for both offences,” Coyle recalled.
“We actually didn’t shoot the ball that badly, but we have to work hard to get looks out there and we didn’t get as many as we are normally used to.
“And you have to give Dryden a lot of credit for that,” he added.
However, thanks to a 15-point effort by Will Anderson, the black-and-gold escaped the Eagles’ Nest with a victory.
“Will carried the team in scoring during stretches that the team needs those points,” Coyle stressed. “And when the other starters couldn’t find their shots, he helped us pull through.”
Anderson led the way again last Thursday, netting 21 points in Fort High’s romp over the visiting Broncos.
“We actually started off kind of sluggish,” admitted Coyle. “But in the second quarter, we locked them down on defence and I think Kenora had something like nine points at halftime.
“Tim Metke, Gavin Moorhouse, and Colton Craig all played great on defence today [Thursday] and they were going after the loose balls all the time, which helped to change the game for us,” he added.
“When you can hold a team to 19 points in a game, I think that says a lot for our defence and it was a good effort by everyone.”
While Coyle is pleased with his team’s defensive play so far, he’d like his players to work on their offence prior to their next NorWOSSA game, which won’t take place until Tuesday, Jan. 10 in Dryden.
“The offence has to evolve,” he stressed.
“If we do the same things game in and game out, a good defence will start figure that out,” he warned.
In junior action, meanwhile, the black-and-gold split their first two games of the season, earning a 41-39 overtime win against host Dryden last Wednesday before falling 27-26 to Kenora here the following afternoon.
“We trailed a bit against Dryden but we were able to come back and win, which was great to see from the boys,” said head coach Jeff Vandahl.
“Here against Kenora, even though we had a chance to win the game at the very end, we made too many mistakes and didn’t capitalize on our opportunities earlier, which put us in that situation,” he added.
Darren Lundgren led the way in scoring for the juniors in both games, netting 15 points against Dryden while adding seven in the loss to Kenora.
