The St. Anthony’s Sabres Senior girls basketball team are demonstrating growth and improvement throughout the season, and it showed at their home tournament.
The Sabres were first up against Beiseker on Friday, January 14, and played strong, but lost 33-52. Darby Andrus had 15 points and Brittany Stahl contributed eight. The second game of round robin play saw the Sabres take on Olds Koinonia on Saturday morning. This time Stahl led the way with 15 points and Andrus scored eight. Bailey Faubion also contributed 10 points including two three pointers.
When the two pools merged the Sabres played their final game of the weekend versus Three Hills. In the close game, the Sabres lost by only six points, 59-65. Andrus had 22 and Stahl had 19 points.
The Sabres finished sixth out of the seven teams that competed. Stahl and Andrus both received MVPs.
“The scores were all pretty close as the teams were all really evenly matched, which made for a great tournament,” said coach Chloe Grant. “The feedback I received was very positive in the respect that it is fun to play in such an equally matched tournament.”
She has seen great progress from her squad in the few short months they have been competing.
“There has been some huge growth, definitely in the confidence area. Defensively we have grown tremendously and we now have a very strong zone defense,” she said. “We have been kind of tackling issues as they come, but we have been working a lot one on one to boost individual skills. We measure growth by seeing the girls put what they learn in practice into play in their games, and we have been seeing that a lot.”
Not only is there improvement on the defensive end of the court, but Grant also said she has seen better passing, better speed and on-court communication. One area to focus on moving forward is shooting under pressure.
“All in all I am extremely happy with the growth I have seen and I am super excited for what the next couple of months might look like,” said Grant.
