It was a close match, but the R.F. Staples Thunderbirds senior girls basketball team couldn’t quite overcome Edmonton’s Eastglen High School in the consolation final.
Although the girls lost the match 49-46, coach Rod Carlyon said the game could easily have gone the other way.
“Boy, it was close,” he said. “They won the first quarter, we won the second and third quarters then they won the final. We had a couple shots to tie it right at the end, but they beat us by three.”
Carlyon said he sees the game as basically a tie, but a few bad bounces left the T-Birds with a loss.
“I usually don’t focus on the end of the game,” he said. “If somebody misses a basket, well, we were there all game. We just needed to hit a couple shots.”
The girls really had to hit the ground running this weekend, as it was the first action the relatively young team has seen so far this season.
There are five Grade 10 players, five in Grade 11 and just one in Grade 12 — the only one with senior team experience.
That relative inexperience played into Friday night’s first game against Edmonton’s St. Joseph, which although it was a bit of a struggle for this girls, nonetheless went fairly well.
“We were OK, because these were our first games of the season,” he said. “We know we played teams where this is already their fourth, fifth or sixth game of the season.”
The loss to St. Joseph meant the girls played again that night, this time against Cold Lake.
“They were in much the same situation as us, where they haven’t had any games under their belt yet. They lost, and we showed a really good team effort,” Carlyon said.
“We won that game with lots of comfort and everybody got some playing time and a feel for the game.”
The entire tournament was a good learning experience, not just to get the players used to this level of competition but also to get an idea of specific areas to work on.
Shooting has been a bit of a struggle so far, as well as a few specific defences.
In particular, the girls fell victim to a tactic known as “the press,” which essentially keeps a team struggling in its own defensive zone.
“We really hadn’t practiced breaking the press,” he said. “It’s a scheme and we just didn’t have it well practiced.”
All told, Carlyon said the tournament went really well, with the entire team now doing a better job of knowing what the relative strengths and weaknesses are — and knowing how to address them.
The next action for the girls will be this weekend in Whitecourt, along with the senior boys, who will face their first action of the season.
