Mitch Calvert
The Muskie junior and senior girls’ basketball teams once again fed off each another’s successes and stole a pair of wins from the host Kenora Broncos in NorWOSSA play yesterday.
The juniors (4-2) led wire-to-wire en route to a 26-19 victory.
“We had way less turnovers this game, which was something that hurt us in our home game [versus Dryden on Tuesday],” Muskie co-coach Sarah Noonan said. “We lost the last time we came [to Kenora] and we weren’t going to let that happen again.”
The Muskies held Kenora to just four points in the first half while exploiting the Broncos’ tenacious defence with quick ball movement and accurate shooting.
“They played a man-to-man and we practised against [that strategy] this week because we thought that was what they were going to come at us with,” Noonan noted. “We just moved the ball around and capitalized on our shots.”
Despite a late push from Kenora, the Muskies were able to stem the tide and maintain a comfortable lead from start to finish.
“They started full-court pressing us in that fourth quarter,” Noonan noted. “We were also trying to play everyone as well, so they got a few extra points, but we had a comfy lead on them so we weren’t overly concerned with that.”
Erika Moffitt led the Muskie attack with nine points.
The juniors next are hosting a tournament today and tomorrow at Fort High.
The seniors, meanwhile, eked out a 26-24 win over the host Broncos yesterday to also improve their NorWOSSA record to 4-2. They’re currently in second place behind Dryden (5-1) with just two games left in the regular season.
“We could’ve played better, we made a lot of errors, but we managed to pull out the win by two points,” Muskie coach Ian Simpson admitted. “We made a lot of bad passes, but again the highlight was we did come alive in the last quarter again.
“We pressed them and were able to take over the game.”
Simpson said foul trouble forced standout shooter Taylor Meyers to the bench early in the third quarter, but Sian Donald stepped up and did an excellent job in her absence.
Lauren Gurski led the way with nine points while Simpson said both Chelsea Craig and Jolene Stahn came up big when it counted, especially in their own end with hard-nosed defensive play.
Unfortunately, the story on the volleyball court yesterday wasn’t quite so rosy as both the Muskie junior and senior boys’ teams failed to record their first wins of the NorWOSSA season.
Both coaches have admitted they’re in rebuilding mode and trying to establish a positive, winning culture. But with that invariably comes some growing pains.
The seniors (0-6) lost their best-of-five match in three sets by scores of 25-8, 25-18, and 25-16. The juniors (0-6) had a better go of it, stealing a set from the host Broncos before falling in four sets by scores of 16-25, 29-27, 18-25, and 16-25.
“The kids really started to come around,” coach Duane Roen said. “That second set was a nail-biter from start to finish, and it was nice to see them pull it out.”
Roen said it was the one set his team didn’t dig themselves a big hole by falling behind early. “It seems like we’d get behind by 10 points right away each time,” he noted.
“They [Kenora] were a good serving team, had two key servers who started each game, and that made it tough to run our offence because we had trouble getting it to the setter [off their serves].
“We need to get more fired up at the start of sets,” Roen stressed.
The junior boys next head to Dryden today for a two-day tournament, with all four teams resuming NorWOSSA action next Thursday (Oct. 23) in Dryden.
