Cougars solid in Early Bird tournament

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Crowther Memorial Junior High School Cougars boys and girls basketball teams held their Early Bird home tournaments on Dec. 6.
Both teams played really well and showed strong work ethics considering it was their first competition of the season.
Girls’ coach Scott Koller was really thrilled to see his team bond as well as they did on the court.
“Our team bonded well and we are starting to trust each other,” said Koller. “The girls did really well, they were a little nervous for the first game but the last two games, they played much better.”
The girls will have lots of work to do as the season goes along but their strong point will be the offence.
“There are always things that need to be worked on. When we really start to run our offence it will be hard for other teams to stop us from scoring,” said Koller.
He expects to have players that work hard in every game.
“I expect to have a group of girls that will work their hardest and challenge every team that we play. My goals are to play as a team and work harder than everyone else,” said Koller. “Our whole season will hinge on our ability to have five girls play as one.”
Boys’ head coach Matthew Laslo thought his team played well in the tournament and felt that this was a start of good things to come.
“It went relatively well, we tried to give everyone lots of minute on the floor, so everyone played a lot, and we got better as the tournament went on,” said Laslo.
There were many positives to take out of the tournament and the effort showed in the team’s performance.
“When we want to, we play really well as a team. When we are passing the ball, running the floor and working hard on defense, we can be a really great team,” said Laslo.
The boys will have a shorter team height this year, so strong rebounding will be key.
“Rebounding is really the most important aspect of the game, as it allows your team to get a few extra shots, and prevents the opposition from getting extra shots. We’re a little shorter this year, so rebounding is really going to have to be a whole team effort,” said Laslo.
There are players on the team that have played different levels of basketball and will be called upon to provide leadership.
“We have a lot of players who have played a lot of basketball at various levels, so experience will be a strength. As well, we have a lot of players that want to work hard and get better, which is always great at this level,” said Laslo. “The goal this year is to have everyone by the end of the season playing great team basketball. If we’re all out there playing for each other, we should be able to win some tournaments.”