Lucas Punkari
One game.
That’s all that stands between the Muskie boys’ basketball teams and NorWOSSA gold.
Both squads earned byes to their respective finals today at Fort High thanks to first-place finishes during the regular season, with both awaiting the winners of this morning’s semi-final clashes between the Kenora Broncos and Dryden Eagles.
The junior final is slated to get underway at 3:45 p.m., with the senior final wrapping up the day’s activities at 7:15 p.m.
Despite knowing they only have to win one game to capture their league crowns, both coaches were keeping things status quo going into the finals.
“We’re not going to be doing anything different,” stressed junior Muskie head coach Jeff Vandahl.
“The worst thing you can do is to overwork the guys in practice and have someone pick up a silly injury.
“We’re playing well right now and we’re healthy, so we will stick to the same practice plan and continue to work on the things that we have been developing,” he added.
“It’s all about fine-tuning at this point,” agreed senior Muskie head coach Bryce Coyle.
“We’ve played Dryden and Kenora about seven times each this year, so there will be no real secrets between one another with whoever comes out of that [semi-final] game to play us in the final,” he reasoned.
The senior hoopsters wrapped up league play with a 7-1 record after a convincing 49-27 victory over the Eagles here last Thursday.
Caleb McIntosh led the way with a 16-point showing.
“The defence the Eagles were playing was to try and take both Caleb and Will [Anderson] out of the game, and they did a good job of that in the first half,” Coyle recalled.
“As a result of that extra attention those two were getting, our other players got a lot of open looks, which they weren’t able to capitalize on early,” he noted.
“But in the second half, they were able to make those shots and our defence was able to hold Dryden to just eight points.”
Last Tuesday afternoon saw the senior Muskies dominate their opponents in Kenora, crushing the Broncos 42-18.
“Everything went really well for us in that game,” Coyle remarked. “Everyone got minutes out on the court, which is something that we wanted to do, and we also jumped out to an early lead.
“From there, we were able to dictate the pace of the game, and from there we just pulled away,” he added.
By holding the Broncos to just 18 points, the black-and-gold showed again why defence is the strong point of their game—and the one thing Coyle is most proud of from his squad.
“It was fairly strong to begin with, but we have really fined-tuned our defence over the last couple of months,” he said.
“I have to give the guys a lot of credit as they have been working their butts off all year long and taken a lot of pride in playing good defence.
“And that has been showing as of late, as we have been holding teams to single-digit points during halves, which is just phenomenal,” Coyle lauded.
As for the juniors, they wrapped up a berth in the final with a 39-21 victory over Dryden here Thursday, giving the team a 6-2 record in regular-season action.
“We had a couple of really good practices this week where the guys were all working really hard, and it showed,” Vandahl said.
“We made the most of our opportunities, we took care of the basketball, and we also worked hard on defence, and that was the difference.”
Darren Lundgren was the top scorer for the Muskies with 15 points.
Prior to that game, the Muskies emerged with a narrow 31-30 triumph over host Kenora last Tuesday, which allowed the black-and-gold to move into first place in the standings.
“That game came right down the wire,” noted Vandahl, who was unable to attend the game and had Greg St. Croix take charge of the team.
“We had the benefit of being down by one point at the end, and we were able to make the final basket just as time expired,” he said.
“And it was a huge win for us to beat Kenora again.”
