Ardens Use Size And Layups To Beat The Spirits
Photos and story by Robert Thomas
The Vanier Spirits found themselves out rebounded by the visiting a Swift Current Ardens in a 84 - 37 loss on Tuesday evening.
The Ardens used their size along with their layup skills to dominate the game.
The loss leaves the Spirits with 1 - 1 record in the Moose Jaw city senior girls league.
The First Quarter saw the Ardens out score the Spirits 23 - 11.
The Second Quarter saw the Ardens take a 46 - 20 lead over the Spirits.
The Third Quarter saw the Ardens increase their lead 70 - 25.
The Final Score saw the Ardens defeat the Spirits 84 and 37.
Vanier Spirits head coach Alisha Amey said the Ardens used their size to control both offensive and defensive rebounds.
“Size is a big difference. They have a great team over there they have a lot of skilled girls. But size really gets us. We will be working on the fundamentals of boxing out it’s something we have to work on,” Amey said.
The Ardens did not just control many rebounds but they also used their layup abilities to dominate the game.
Despite the loss Amey said there were a lot of positives by the Spirits.
“There are so many positives. We learnt so much defensively. I love that we never gave up, the girls’ attitude all of the time. They stayed there until the last second. Everyone was engaged…I also learned what we can improve on offensively.”
“There are a lot of good things there,” she said.
The early stages of the game saw Maddie Cruz step up and lead the Spirits.
“Defensively she goes after it to put pressure on it. She’s got the grit of someone twice her size. I love it she played really hard today,” Amey said.
Later in the game Waverly Demassi came on.
“Wave did good. She shot the ball well. She’s a leader of the team and she did that today too,” she said.
The Ardens used their size and played zone defence to keep the Spirits out of the key. The Spirits responded by attempting three point shots from the outside.
“We are not going to outsize them on the key so getting three point shots, shots outside the key is what was there.”
Amey expects the rematch will be a tough game but the Spirits will be up for the challenge.
Swift Current Ardens head coach Andrew Herrick said “it was a good first league game. You never know what to expect when you’re coming to a new season.”
“I thought our girls came out and they executed the game plan well. We are trying to work on a few things. Trying to get us ready for down the road. I thought we did a good job taking advantage of the opportunity to come here and play here today,” Herrick said.
He attributed the Ardens strength on the backboard because the team has some girls of size.
“I thought again we did a really good job with Sarah Neustata and Rayanne Fleischpresser they were on the boards early and taking advantage of the opportunities.”
“We were trying to push the ball and transition as you can see when you’re watching the game it kind of lead to some easy runouts. We took advantage what the defence was giving us.
Asked about the Ardens employing zone defence keeping the Spirits outside of the key and forcing three point shots he said it “is a work in progress all at the beginning of the season.”
“Maybe we didn’t show that well during this past weekend at our home tournament. We played a few more minutes of the zone tonight and the girls are learning every possession.”
“We are just trying to execute what we’ve been teaching them in practice. Tonight I think you did see it. We did a better job keeping the ball in the middle third of the floor. And the results was the other team was forced to shoot those three pointers,” he said.
The Ardens ran with 10 players on Tuesday evening because two of their players are out with injuries.
“We hope to get them back down the road.”
With a large lead the Ardens were able to play their full bench.
“It’s nice when your whole roster can see the floor and get some meaningful minutes. I think in the second half we did a good job getting our second unit some valuable minutes that will pay off down the road.”
He said the team has some young girls that haven’t seen any senior girls play before so every minute in the early part of the season is very valuable for them.
