Jamie Mountain
You could say the Muskie boys’ basketball teams are shining brightly of late.
The senior hoopsters are heading into the final week of the NorWOSSA regular season fresh off a third-place finish at the Kenora Invitational Tournament held Friday and Saturday.
The black-and-gold opened play Friday with a 66-54 win over the Portage CI Trojans, then were thumped 52-27 by Churchill (Thunder Bay) on Saturday.
But the squad responded with an impressive 71-48 rout of the host Broncos later Saturday to claim bronze.
Top scorers for the tourney were not available.
“I thought we are starting to do a better job of moving the ball and trusting each other, which allows us the opportunity–at times–to get some higher percentage shots,” said Muskie coach Bryce Coyle.
“As a whole, we played hard all weekend,” he noted. “But when we found ourselves down 10-5 at the end of the first quarter against Churchill, our body language and confidence was horrible . . . and we were only down five points.
“We helped Churchill take us right out of that game because we got down at the first sign of some adversity and it completely changed they way the guys were playing on the court,” Coyle stressed.
“It is something we will address this week in practice,” he vowed. “And hopefully the guys learned something from that.”
The black-and-gold cruised to a 78-44 romp over the Broncos last Thursday afternoon at Fort High to improve to 3-3 in NorWOSSA play.
Jreydon Indian netted a team-high 17 points while Cole Kowalski had 16.
Heading into the final week of the regular season, which sees the Muskies taking on those same Broncos again today in Kenora before heading to Dryden tomorrow to face the Eagles, Coyle would like his squad to refine certain details of their game.
“At this point in the season, it starts coming down to the attention to detail in my opinion,” he remarked.
“The meat-and-potatoes of your systems are all in place, but now it comes down to how you can refine the execution of those systems.
“Confidence comes from the preparation you put into something because if you know the plays and systems inside and out, you play loose and relaxed and it will allow you to play your best,” Coyle reasoned.
“That will be the challenge for us going forward,” he noted. “Can we put the finishing touches on some things that will allow us to stop rigidly thinking on the court and allow us to start playing relaxed?”
The junior Muskies, meanwhile, head into this week after gutting out a narrow 45-42 win over Kenora here last Thursday to improve their NorWOSSA record to 5-1.
Michael Vanderaa scored a team-high 19 points while Brady Bodnarchuk added 12 and Sean Huziak chipped in with six.
Coach Angela Petsnick lauded the play of her key players in the win.
“Michael Vanderaa had a standout game, as usual, with 19 points,” she lauded. “He’s a solid offence and defence player, and can always be relied on to get the job done.
“Brady Bodnarchuk had a great three-point game, he was shooting well from the outside, and I know he’s been really working on that shot in practice,” Petsnick added.
“Sean [Huziak] had a good game defensively and I can always count on him to give 100 percent, and Wyatt Richards is the big guy defensively under the net,” she said.
“He’s a big guy and he knows how to use his body.”
The junior boys also play the Broncos today before wrapping up the regular season tomorrow against the Eagles.
