Senior girls aggressive in exhibition win

The Muskie senior girls’ basketball team used an aggressive defence to cruise to a 36-28 exhibition win over Atikokan here last night.
The black-and-gold, who struggled offensively as a unit in beating their ‘A’ opponents, were led by Hannah Carter’s game-high 12 points.
Carter admitted it was Atikokan’s zone defence, which she said the Muskies haven’t seen too much of so far this season, as being the reason for their low offensive output.
“It’s hard to play against a different team from a different level of play and we had trouble playing against the zone,” she said.
“But I think we got used to it as the game went on,” she added. “I think we played down to their level and that’s a mental thing that we should be able to beat.”
“We played more of an up-tempo game against the zone and we moved the ball well at times. But we have to get better at it because I expect we’ll see [the zone] come playoff time,” noted co-coach Gord McCabe.
McCabe also said last night’s game was a chance to get some of his back-ups some much-needed court time.
“We were never up by less than seven but we don’t need to win by 25 so we played some players that might normally not get to play,” he noted.
The Muskies were noticeably aggressive on the boards and on the floor chasing loose balls against the much-smaller Atikokan squad. But McCabe admitted he didn’t like the fact his team played inconsistent defensively.
“We were aggressive going after loose balls but often it was because we were too lazy on defence, and then after we got beat, we panicked and then we picked up the intensity.
“If we do that [Wednesday] against Kenora, we’re going to be in trouble,” he stressed.
Still, McCabe said one of the bright spots on defence was the aggressive play of 5’9″ forward Veronica Myers, who has quickly earned a spot in the starting lineup after starting the season on the bench.