Mitch Calvert
Win two or go home.
That’s the predicament both the Muskie senior and junior girls’ basketball teams face at the NorWOSSA playoffs this Friday in Dryden.
The seniors wrapped up their regular season here last Tuesday with a convincing 35-23 victory over the Kenora Broncos, backed by a 20-point effort from Lauren Gurski.
The Muskies (5-3) finished in second place behind the Dryden Eagles, who sported at 7-1 record after beating Kenora 48-31 in their regular-season finale on Thursday.
As such, the black-and-gold will meet the third-place Broncos in the NorWOSSA semi-final, with the winner having to turn around and face the Eagles on their home court for the league crown and a trip to NWOSSAA.
On a positive note, the Muskies have had plenty of time to practice given nine days will have passed between games when they suit up Friday.
“We are focusing on shooting, focusing on ball-handling and our passing, and on trying to find ways to deal with Dryden’s pressure defence,” Muskie coach Ian Simpson said.
“At the same time, we can’t lose sight of the fact in order to get to a game against Dryden, we have to get by Kenora,” he stressed. “Kenora is capable of putting together a good game, and anything can happen in a one-day format like that.
“They’ve been playing a zone defence lately and have some big players, which helps them with rebounding, so we have to improve our outside shooting to open things up,” Simpson warned.
The Muskies have used strong team defence to limit their opponents’ scoring all season—but need some more players to score consistently to win those close games.
“We’ve always been able to hold the opponents down in terms of point production, [but] our efforts have to be to increase our own point production and our efficiency in the offensive zone,” Simpson stressed.
“Our goals defensively are to hold the other team to 30-32 points and for us to score 40, so we need to limit them to about eight points a quarter and have us score 10 or 12.”
A bright spot offensively has been the continued scoring prowess shown by Gurski, who appears to be on a mission in her final trip to the NorWOSSA playoffs.
“Hopefully she’ll be able to keep up her offensive production,” Simpson said. “She’s been a go-to person for us all year and when we’ve needed points, she’s delivered.”
Meanwhile, the Muskie juniors also closed the regular season with a win, downing the visiting Broncos 16-10 last Tuesday to similarly finish in second place with a 5-3 record.
They now meet those same Broncos in Friday’s semi-final after Dryden beat Kenora 38-28 on Thursday to secure first place at 6-2.
“We hope our bench comes through as we’ll need them playing two games like that,” Muskie co-coach Dan Bird said.
“I’ve never had a team of 15 players where I can rotate them in a game and know that we have a good chance to win,” he enthused. “In other years, I’d have seven players I’d play more than others.
“And not to say I haven’t done that this year, but I’m really happy with our bench play and the depth of our team.”
The Muskies went 3-1 against the Broncos during the regular season and matched up well with the Eagles, going 2-2 against them.
“We know we can play with these guys, and I think [Dryden] knows because we’ve beat them,” Bird stressed. “We’re looking on improving our fast break transition from defence to offence, and on increasing the tempo of our offence and spreading it out a little more.”
Despite beating Kenora in their final home game, Bird felt his squad could have converted on a lot more of their scoring opportunities—and will need to if they expect to attain their goal of winning NorWOSSA gold.
“We were getting great shot opportunities but some were nowhere close [to going in],” Bird admitted. “We need to square up.
“Too many shots were hurried last game, so we’ve just been working with some players on squaring up their shots.”
Bird also said the Muskies need to play hard in the paint and force their opponents into foul trouble.
“It’s about taking every offensive rebound and putting it straight back up, and driving to the basket at every opportunity to hopefully put us at the [foul] line,” he remarked.
“We’ve been holding back and not putting ourselves in a position to get on the line,” he noted. “Some of our players, especially our good Grade 9 players, are timid, so they’ll stop four feet from the basket instead of driving to the hoop, and then we have no chance of them fouling us.
“As a team, I think we’re pretty good on the line, so we need to take advantage of that,” Bird added.
