The St. Anthony’s senior girls Sabres are taking a break for the holidays after only three short weeks on court.
The relatively young team, which consists mostly of Grade 10 students, is working hard to develop their skills and have a great season.
The Sabres took on a strong squad from Prairie Christian Academy (PCA) and came away with a 48-26 loss.
The game was close for the most part. It wasn’t until the final quarter that PCA was able to ratchet up the score.
“It was not a bad game. It was really close for the first three quarters, but in the last they pulled away,” said Chloe Grant, head coach of the senior girls Sabres. “We could’ve beat them, but a few things fell apart.”
Despite the loss, the game offered a good chance to see where the team is at and where they need to go for the rest of the season.
“After the half time they improved on the rebounds and aggression. Our offense had to step up their game quite a bit. Prairie Christian is a fast team, so we had to work a lot on dribbling the ball down the court, setting up screens, and helping the post guards,” said Grant.
“We’re going to be working on shooting, defensive strategies. We’re a really young team and we’ve only had four practices, so there are a few things we have to smooth out. Working cohesively is probably the biggest thing, because we just haven’t had a lot of time together yet.”
The Sabres were in Acme last Wednesday, but the Redmen proved to be tough opponents. They were in Acme again over the weekend for a tournament where they faced stiff competition against teams from Acme, Cochrane, and Drumheller Valley Secondary School.
“There were amazing teams there, but we basically have a JV [junior varsity] team. It’s a foundation year,” said Grant. “They’re getting better at running a zone defence, we have a strong point guard [in Bailey Faubion], and working on being more assertive under the hoop.”
The Sabres will be taking a break for the holidays, but will return in the new year and will be gearing up for their own tournament at St. Anthony’s School in early January.
The ladies of the Sabres seniors girls basketball team are gearing up for a great season. The team consists of coach Melissa Dionisio (back, left), Jaiden Lal, Sam Hirsch, Stepanie Hirsch, Meaghan Peters, coach Chloe Grant, Rebecca Graf (front), Bailey Faubion, Alex Cassesl, and Dianne Importa (missing).
