Staff
Kenora isn’t the Klondike but the four Muskie court teams will be looking to strike plenty of gold tomorrow—and three of them won’t have to work near as hard as their NorWOSSA rivals.
Thanks to their first-place finishes during the regular season, both the Muskie senior and junior girls’ basketball teams, as well as the junior boys’ volleyball squad, all earned byes to their respective finals at the NorWOSSA playoffs tomorrow at Beaver Brae High School.
That means all three can sit back and watch as the host Broncos and Dryden Eagles slug it out in the semi-finals.
In recent years, having to play one game instead of two during the day has proved extremely beneficial to those teams with the bye, who more often than not used their extra rest to propel themselves to the league crown.
The Muskie senior girls finished the regular season with a 6-2 record, posting an average of 27 points per game while surrendering just over 20.
“Defensively, we’ve played a good zone defence and been able to keep the score down,” said coach Ian Simpson, who expects to face the Eagles in the gold-medal game.
“On offence, we’ve still got some work to do,” he admitted.
“We’ve got to make our lay-ups and our free throws,” he stressed. “We haven’t been as good at the foul line as we could be.”
The Muskie junior girls also will look to rely on defence to carry them to victory tomorrow.
“Defensively, we play a 2-3 zone and all four of our guards do a real good job of making the other teams’ guards force the outside shot,” said coach Dan Bird.
“And once our forwards get there, they do a great job of blocking out.
“It’s a strength for us, for sure,” he enthused.
For coach Duane Roen and his junior spikers, it’s been a phenomenal turnaround from a winless campaign last year to an undefeated season this time around.
Now they just have to finish what they started.
“The guys are working so hard to improve all the time,” noted Roen.
“They’re a very coachable team,” he added. “They always want to learn more and more.”
The only Muskie team facing a semi-final challenge in Kenora will be the senior boys’ volleyball crew (their opponent was not known at press time).
Coach John Gibson and his squad suffered plenty of tough times while struggling through an 0-8 regular season, but none of that will matter with two wins tomorrow.
