Joey Payeur
The Dryden Eagles scored first against the Muskie junior girls’ basketball team in NorWOSSA action here yesterday.
To quote Julia Roberts in the film “Pretty Woman”: big mistake, huge.
The Muskies (5-0) responded by going on a 23-0 run to sew up the game by early in the second quarter en route to an easy 46-19 rout of the Eagles (1-3).
Ashley Croswell led the black-and-gold with 12 points while Lindsay Dixon added 10 and Claire Hyatt nine.
“We used a press defence to start the game, which was different for us, but it really worked well,” noted Hyatt.
“We also used a 2-3 zone in the second half that was effective, too,” she added.
“We did a great job getting lots of rebounds and putting them right back in the net.”
The Muskies led 29-8 at the half, allowing them plenty of opportunity to get their bench players into the game in the second half, where Fort High only outscored the Eagles 17-11.
Hyatt admitted beating Dryden and Kenora each by double digits in every game so far this year has her worried about the team slipping into the danger zone of overconfidence.
“When we have that first game where we start to get behind, we might get down on ourselves,” she warned.
“Our confidence might be a problem.”
The juniors travel to Thunder Bay this weekend for a tournament hosted by the Westgate Tigers.
“It’s going to be interesting,” mused Hyatt.
“I don’t know if we’ll end up facing Kenora or Dryden down there, but we will be up against some different teams we haven’t seen yet,” she noted.
The Muskie senior girls, meanwhile, opened the day’s action by dumping Dryden 46-20 to also improve to 5-0 in NorWOSSA play.
Sarah Bagacki led the charge with 12 points while Cassandra Moffitt netted nine and Hanna McLeod eight.
“We were really moving our feet today and staying off our heels on defence,” noted Moffitt.
“Everybody really tried their hardest.”
Fort High began the game on an 8-0 run and held the Eagles (0-4) to just one field goal in the first quarter and three in the half while building a 23-8 lead.
Muskie co-coach Dan Bird called the game his team’s most thorough effort to date this season.
“Every time we had five girls on the floor working together,” he lauded.
“We’re really starting to gel on both ends of the court.”
The seniors make their own visit to Thunder Bay this weekend, where they’ll take part in the Churchill Bulldogs’ tourney.
“We’ll definitely get a feel for some of the teams we might end up facing in the NWOSSAA championship,” noted McLeod.
Spikers lose
In boys’ volleyball yesterday, a difficult season continued for the 0-5 Muskie senior squad, which dropped its best-of-five match to the visiting Eagles 3-0 (25-14, 25-22, 25-12).
Fort High played well in spurts, leading for part of the first set and most of the second one.
But Dryden (4-0) showed why it remains the team to beat in NorWOSSA.
“In the first two sets, our effort was there,” said Muskie libero/back middle player Braeden Caul.
“In the final set, it seems like we weren’t into it,” he noted. “We should have been using the momentum we got from the second set.
“It’s frustrating,” Caul added.
“For being the fifth [match] of the season, we should be able to get a win by now,” he stressed.
“We have to keep fighting.”
Caul cited several areas which need to improve in order for the Muskies to break into the win column.
“We’ve got to work on our passing more and lower our unforced errors,” he remarked.
“We’ve also got to stop hitting the ball out.”
The Muskies were scheduled to head to Dryden this weekend for the Eagles’ home tournament.
But with coach Jason Jones unavailable to attend, it wasn’t known as of press time today if an adult supervisor to go in his place could be found in time.
As for the junior Muskies (2-3), the home team put up a strong battle but fell 3-1 to the Eagles (4-0).
Set scores were unavailable as of press time today.
