Spartans basketball looking for more consistency

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Strathmore Spartans senior girls basketball team provided themselves with a good measuring stick after their home tournament last weekend in terms of how they stack up against strong teams and what it will take to win basketball games this season.
“We just need to find out what’s going to work,” said head coach Dion Galandy.
“With a young team it makes it more challenging to get them to play against Grade 12s as Grade 10s.”
Galandy said the girls need to keep their intensity up, play smarter and play with focus, which will all come with consistency.
However, he thinks there are a lot of positives to take moving forward into the season, especially with the returning players. “Our returning players are playing well,” said Galandy.
“They’re playing with a desire to want to make a difference on the team. It’s been good to see them and try to step up and lead the team. I think they’ll be leaders and it’ll continue just to improve. January is the next part of the season where we have to improve and get rolling there.”
He added the team has focused more on defense more than offense early on this season and said they will shift that over a little bit and work more on their offense while continuing to work on their defensive schemes.
The girls went 1-2 in the tournament and lost in the consolation game.
As for the senior boys, they have two tournaments under their belt this season and are looking to get better in every game as head coach Kyle Larson said their team speed, athleticism and hard work will be a big part of their success for the rest of the season. “We are a very deep team and will rotate all players through the floor this season,” said Larson.
“Our team commitment to defense and pressure is very strong and defensively. We have never had a team that works this hard collectively. When we are shooting well, we are very dangerous. We have excellent scoring depth this year and get offensive contributions from all of our kids.”
However, Larson said with their high tempo game there would be areas of their game that will need to be worked on to stay consistent.
“We play a very up tempo game and as such our decision making will need to improve,” he said. “We will need to continue to work at improving our shooting every practice so that we are consistently a threat for teams from behind the three point arc.”
The overall goal for the season will be to try to get two wins every weekend and make it to zones, all while pushing hard for a spot in provincials.