Jr. B Hawks basketball want player determination

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Holy Cross Collegiate Hawks Junior B girls basketball team will be relying heavily on skill development this year.
“The team is mostly Grade 7s, I only have three Grade 8s on the team. Sure, winning is always fun, we do want the girls to win some games but skill development is the main goal,” said head coach Vito Peraino.
Despite only having two practices, Peraino has been impressed with the knowledge that the players have been able to bring to the team, and their strength will be defense.
“The good news is they all seem to know the sport pretty well. The street ball versus an actual basketball game is going to be a little bit different and I think that’s where we’re going to struggle is getting away from everybody attacking the ball,” said Peraino.
“I’m not too worried about our shooting, a lot of our kids can shoot, and they’re able to put the ball in. I think defense is what we’re going to work on the most.”
The goal for the group is to have consistent effort on the court and be able to take what they learned in a practice/ game situation and for some to move up to Junior A next season.
“You definitely want to have fun but practices are practices and we’re here to learn. The whole idea is these girls will be on the ‘A’ team next year, whether they’re Grade 7s now, they’re going to be Grade 8s and beat out some of those Grade 9s next year and that’s the goal,” said Peraino.
The Junior B boys will be a team that will use their speed down court as they are a smaller team.
“I think we have a lot of heart and character kids. They’re all new kids for me, I don’t teach many of them, so I’m looking forward to the next few practices to see where their strengths lie,” said coach Benjamin Chin.
“Honestly it’s so early and with every new team we start fresh and play off our strengths and build up our weaknesses. I think we’ll be a coachable team, lots of good attitudes on the team. We have some leadership from last year in the Grade 8s so I’m looking forward to see how they lead by example and how the Grade 7s fill a certain role throughout the year.”
The strength will hopefully be speed with some skill ball handlers.
“I’m hoping it will be speed because we don’t have a lot of size and some aggressive, skilled ball handlers,” said Chin.
Both teams will be playing tournament play this season.