It was an exciting finish, and the girls were pretty thrilled to win a close one against a good program in a great atmosphere. What pleased me most is that I could tell our girls expected to win. That's a great sign. |
Sam is our defensive stopper, and fans may not see all the little things she does to help the team succeed. She hustles all the time and she knocks away or deflects so many passes that end up steals for her teammates. She's the epitome of a team player, always does her role and hits the open shot when it's there. |
That's a credit to these girls that so many things didn't go their way, yet they kept battling and had opportunities to win. We played hard, just not well. |
The girls were excited but not satisfied. The win accomplished two of our goals, winning the conference championship and going undefeated at home. We cut down the nets and celebrated some, but it wasn't wild. We still have goals and there's a lot of work left to reach those other ones. |
The great thing about having a game like this is being able to try different things. We worked on our full-court pressure, both man and trapping. We also tried some of the things we haven't used too much this season just to take a look at them. |
Their kids play extremely hard all the time and I'm sure they'll increase their intensity at tournament time. We'll have a size advantage on them in the post and we want to make full use of that. |
We did a pretty good job containing her most of the game, but she scored 14 points I think in the third quarter. We handled their pressure pretty well, but just did some bad things in the third quarter. |
We didn't handle their pressure well and never got into sync on offense. They jammed our guards and kept us from getting into the offense. We couldn't get the ball inside. Plus there were some other factors that I don't want to get into. |
We got just about every rebound in the third quarter, kept them off the boards. We had some offensive rebounds, too, but couldn't finish with the shot. |
We had three girls foul out, and we got out of sync on offense. Still, if we just play defense in the last few minutes, we win in regulation. We gave up a wide-open 3-pointer with 12 seconds left. |
We never focus on records anyway, but the girls know how other teams are doing. In preparation for any game, we focus on style of play, match-ups and tendencies. We always respect every opponent because when you don't, you will pay the price. |
We set three goals and we accomplished two, which isn't bad. But we wanted to win the conference, go undefeated at home and win a district championship. |
We were in foul trouble, so we didn't want to challenge them defensively. |
We'll try to limit Andrea Moore as much as possible. She's a good player, but we think if we can contain her we should match up pretty well at the other positions. Hopefully, we'll be able to get them on the boards. |
We've scouted Central Catholic twice and they've changed their system from last season. They've moved their post player (Herman) to the wing, maybe because of graduation. They've lost some talent and aren't of the same caliber they were last year. But that doesn't mean they don't have talent. |