Staff
The Muskie junior girls’ basketball team may be dominating NorWOSSA play so far this season but it isn’t looking ahead to the playoffs just yet.
“Our immediate goal is to finish the regular season strong and head into the playoffs on a positive note,” head coach Gord McCabe said in an e-mailed response to the Times.
“We are hoping to have three really good games at the Westgate tournament this weekend in Thunder Bay,” he noted.
“This will be the first time we have played anyone other than Beaver Brae, Dryden, and [St.] Thomas Aquinas, so it will tell a chance to really learn a lot about ourselves,” McCabe added.
“I think we are all looking forward to it.”
The Muskies are coming off a 49-22 romp over the host Kenora Broncos last Wednesday afternoon in improving to 5-0 in league play.
Grace Petsnick led the way with 12 points while Jamie Spencer had eight, with Aurora Hutton and Keisha Debungie netting six points apiece.
Seven other Muskies also got in on the scoring.
“We played a really solid game from beginning to end, as could be reflected in the balance in our offence and defence by quarters,” said McCabe.
“We scored 12 points in the first quarter, 11 in the second, 14 in the third, and 12 in the fourth so we never really had any letdowns, which has been a problem at times,” he noted.
“We were experimenting with a zone defence for the first time this season and while we certainly have lots of room for improvement, I was pleased with how the girls handled it overall,” McCabe lauded.
“We were dominant on the boards as Kenora does not have a lot of height, and we scored a lot of points off rebounds.”
Still, McCabe said they still have some work to do on finishing underneath as sometimes it was the second or third rebound that went in rather than the first one.
“We did have a real balance in scoring, with 11 of 15 players scoring at least one point,” he added.
McCabe said the team will continue to work on ball movement and playing tough man-to-man defence going into its final three games of the regular season, including a game tomorrow at noon against the visiting Dryden Eagles.
“But we will also work on being ready for different situations,” he stressed.
“The plan is to implement a couple of variations of zone defence, as well as working on some pressure defences and making sure we can handle pressure ourselves.
“No one we have played has tried to press us yet, probably because we move the ball so well,” McCabe noted.
“But it is almost guaranteed to happen in the future so we need to be ready for it.”
The Muskies just need to win one of their remaining three matches to clinch top spot and a bye to the NorWOSSA final Nov. 7 in Kenora.
Just who they’ll face remains to be seen.
McCabe said both the Broncos and Eagles present different problems.
“Beaver Brae has a couple of really good guards and they play a three-guard offence, but they don’t have much height and are not nearly as deep on the bench as we are,” he remarked.
“Dryden is taller and has one exceptional guard who is lightning quick and handles the ball really well,” McCabe added.
“We concentrated on stopping her in the last game up in Dryden and it was pretty successful.”
The Muskie senior squad, meanwhile, is hoping to build on what head coach Dan Bird called its best game of the season before coming up short in the fourth quarter in a 34-24 loss to the host Broncos last Wednesday.
“[We] set the pace on defence and offence early in the game, and put forth a solid effort for three quarters,” Bird said in an e-mail.
“We suffered numerous opportunities to establish a good lead.”
The Muskies, sporting an 0-5 record in league play, had just nine players in the lineup, with Andrea Schram missing due to wrist and knee injuries.
“We may have run out of gas,” Bird conceded. “But giving Kenora credit to their leaders, they bounced back in good fashion.”
Bird said Jyllian Westover was the Muskies’ player of the game.
“She displayed great defence and was awarded points with numerous breakaway lay-ups,” he recalled.
But the Muskies may have lost another key player to injury as Janissa Judson injured her wrist.
“This comes at a time when guard match-ups were coming along fine,” Bird noted.
The seniors will resume NorWOSSA play tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. against the visiting Dryden Eagles, then take part in a tournament in Thunder Bay this Friday and Saturday.
“We hope to continue improving on our basics on both ends of the floor,” Bird said.
