All season long, Muskie head coach Gord McCabe has told anyone who would listen that his team should be wary of the Kenora Broncos.
Sure, the Muskies had beaten them five-straight times, including three during regular-season action, but the games were close for the most part.
And, on any given day, McCabe felt Kenora could upset his talented squad.
Well, that day finally came last Wednesday as the Muskies stumbled their way to a 37-31 overtime loss here. And it spoiled their attempt to go 8-0 in NorWOSSA play.
But while the Muskies struggled on the court, at times nowhere near resembling their first-place form, there was a reason why they didn’t look like the same team.
That’s because they weren’t.
The Muskie lineup was down to just eight players against Kenora with the loss of Heather Mihichuk (finger) and Sarah Noonan (ankle), who joined Sarah Vanderplaats on the injury list (gone for the season).
And the lack of depth clearly hurt the black-and-gold.
On the bright side, Noonan and Mihichuk both are expected to be back in the lineup for Friday’s NorWOSSA final in Dryden against either the second-place Broncos or third-place Eagles.
The Muskies had jumped out to what appeared to be a comfortable 18-10 halftime lead last week against Kenora, outscoring the visiting Broncos 11-1 in the second quarter.
But it was a much different story in the second half–and it didn’t have a happy ending for the black-and-gold.
Kenora went on an amazing 11-0 run in the third quarter as the usually-potent Muskie offensive attack suddenly went as cold as a February wind chill.
“Somebody put the lid on the basket and we had some poor shooting,” McCabe said of their third-quarter drought. “You can’t score zero points in a quarter and expect to win.
“We were missing eight- to 10-foot shots that we should be [sinking],” he noted.
Laureen Cousineau led the Muskies with 10 points while Siobhan Devlin added nine.
Still, not all is lost–and the team still has to be favoured to capture NorWOSSA gold later this week. But with the final just two days away, McCabe was leery about letting Kenora or Dryden know much about their game plan.
He chose to remain tight-lipped as to how his defence, which has been very good all season, will play. But it’s expected the Muskies will use a bit of zone, mixed in with man-to-man, while also using their press.
Meanwhile, the first-place Muskie junior girls’ basketball also is favoured to strike gold Friday in Dryden. They wrapped up the regular season with a 7-1 record after downing Kenora 36-17 here last Wednesday.
Allison Hyatt and Carling Barton each scored 12 points to pace the black-and-gold.
The Muskies broke open an 8-3 game midway through the first quarter by going on a 12-2 run to close out the half with a commanding 20-5 lead.
Kenora closed the gap to 24-13 in the third but then the Muskies took over by using a hustling defence that created several turnovers and loose balls.
The Muskies once again used a series of five-player rotations that kept the girls fresh in the second half–allowing them to play an up-tempo and “very aggressive” game that ran Kenora ragged.
“When you’re not using your five, six, seven players [all the time], you’re not as polished, but we worked hard for our three-minute shifts,” Muskie assistant Kent Kowalski said of the scrambly play.
But the unique system does have its benefits. It allows the Muskies to give all their players as much court time as possible while putting constant pressure on the opposition.
Still, despite the benefits, the Muskie coaches are expected to shorten their bench for the NorWOSSA final.
But there’s no question the whole team has played extremely well after losing the opening game of the season. They’re on a seven-game league winning streak, and the team is getting a balanced scoring attack from several different players.
In fact, they seem to find a new scoring star each game.
“The fact is, we have a number of different players, seven or eight, which have led us in scoring during the course of the season,” said McCabe.