The Muskie senior girls’ basketball team used its height advantage at a tournament in Timmins last weekend to win the consolation crown with a 55-46 victory against Sudbury on Saturday afternoon.
The Muskies used some hot shooting by guard Laureen Cousineau to jump out to an 8-0 lead–and led by as many as 13 points by halftime.
Cousineau, who paced the Muskies with 21 points in the final, gives the black-and-gold a good combination of outside shooting to complement their ability to work the ball inside.
“Although [Karen] Harris was named to the all-star team, in our last game I told the girls that Laureen was our MVP,” co-coach Gord McCabe said.
“When the other team plays us man-to-man, it’s crucial that we get the ball up court,” he stressed. “We can’t win without it.”
And that’s exactly Cousineau’s job in this offence, either taking the ball to the hoop herself or dishing it off to her taller teammates underneath.
McCabe said the team has a good mix of outside shooting, led by Cousineau, and height inside to be very competitive this season. In fact, he feels this is one of the best teams he’s coached in quite some time.
“I’m really happy with how we played, we really played well,” he said. “Now I wish we had NorWOSSA because this is probably the best team we’ve had.
“We can either go inside or outside, and it really showed in the game against Timmins. We had a lot more size than them,” added McCabe. “We scored a lot of points off of second chances.”
After a 15-hour bus ride, the Muskies took a while to get their legs ready and dropped a 50-37 decision to O’Gorman (Timmins) but then rebounded with a lopsided 75-27 victory over Timmins High School.
Siobhan Devlin and Cousineau led the Muskies with eight points each in the loss. Harris netted 18 in the win, followed by Devlin (16) and Veronica Meyers (15).
McCabe said his team had trouble adjusting to the higher-tempo game played at the tournament to begin with but they soon found their legs and brought up the level of play.
“It was definitely a step up against compared to what we play here,” he noted.
The Muskies also played “very well” defensively at Timmins, allowing an average of just 37 points per game. McCabe said Christine Noonan was one of their top defensive players last weekend.
“Defensively, we played well considering these teams were a cut above any teams in our league,” he noted.
In junior action, the Muskies dropped a 30-19 decision to Theriault (Timmins) and then lost 60-15 to LaSalle (Sudbury) before rebounding with a 48-39 win over Algonquin (North Bay).
McCabe, who also co-coaches the junior squad this season, said they used their quickness to create quality chances underneath but simply could not find their scoring touch.
“I thought we played well, and we were able to run up and down the floor against teams and we had tons of scoring chances, but we couldn’t put it in,” he said, adding the loss to Sudbury was the simple case of playing one of the top junior teams in the province.
“The juniors were working really hard defensively so I was happy with their play,” he noted.
Sarah Noonan was the Muskies’ top offensive player during the tournament, leading the team in scoring in all three games.
“She’s really our offensive leader. I thought she was one of the better players in the tournament,” McCabe enthused, noting Elissa Green and Heather Mihichuk also played well.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
