Great start for Spartan basketball

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Strathmore High School senior girls basketball team could not have asked for a better start as they were aggressive and driving the basket hard on route to beating Oilfields Drillers 74-58 at the high school.
Coach Dion Galandy was impressed with his team’s effort but admits it is only one game and there is still work to be done
“We didn’t start off extremely well. Our first quarter, we had a pretty sizeable lead, but I rolled through all the girls and give them as many minutes as possible and for them to get the experience because when injuries happen, we’ve got to be prepared (to have) girls step in,” said Galandy. “(Wednesday night’s) game, we played okay for our first game. I wasn’t excited about it, we could’ve played worse, and it was a good first win to get the jitters out of the way.”
The strength of the team will be the familiarity with each other from the previous season and building confidence on the floor to make those plays.
“We got eight returning girls, so we’re going to be familiar with each other. We’re going to be able to do a few more things than we did last year because we have a little bit more confidence,” said Galandy. “We have the experience from going to provincials last year that will benefit us in the long run.”
The team is healthier than last season, as they have not had to deal with injuries right off the bat.
“I recall we had a couple of injuries to start off the last year, this year we’re pretty healthy,” said Galandy.
The make-up of the team will be primarily the players that moved up to Grade 11 and Grade 12, as they will be asked to fill the void left by Grade 12s from a year ago.
“We had three Grade 12s last year and of those three, one was injured and one was a significant player. We’ll see if some of the Grade 11s, who are now Grade 12s, and some of the Grade 10s who are now Grade 11s can step up and take their place,” said Galandy.
The senior girl Spartans will be hosting their home tournament this weekend Dec. 12 and 13 at the high school.
The senior boys will look to use their athleticism, as the team will be young, and to be able to compete with most of the 3A schools by the end of the season.
“We are a pretty young squad but we are quite athletic, being young will certainly create some issues early in the season but we are hoping to be competitive with many of the 3A teams in the zone by the end of the season,” said head coach Kyle Larson.
He expects his team to be a tough bunch to play against and to build off of the boys that are coming from the Junior High level.
“My expectations this year are to see the boys continue to improve and build on some of the success that was started last year at the Junior High level. A number of our Grade 10 players come to us with a love and enthusiasm for the game and we want to ensure that they continue to work hard and push themselves to become better players,” said Larson.
“My expectation is that we will be consistently recognized as a hardworking tough team to play against.”
The work ethic of the boys will be their strength, and combining that with athleticism will improve their growth as players.
“Our team has lots of room to improve and grow, our athleticism is certainly one of our strengths and if we can just mold that athleticism into good basketball players we will be in good shape,” said Larson.
The improvements that can be made are the basic skills that will take some time to adjust to throughout the season.
“We need to improve our fundamentals still and have to grow as a team, our effort will take us a long ways but we really need to practice our ball handling and shooting,” said Larson.
The boys will be in Ponoka for tournament this weekend before hosting the Holy Cross Collegiate Hawks (5:30 p.m.) in an exhibition match on Dec. 15 at Strathmore High School.