Playoff loss ends notable season for Sr. girls squad

The 2015 season came to an end for the senior girls’ basketball team at Elmira District Secondary School last Thursday following a disappointing loss to Galt Collegiate Institute (GCI) in the first round of playoffs.

The girls dropped their last game to GCI on Nov. 5 44-27, but head coach Brian Carter says even though the team won’t be hitting the court again this year, the girls should be proud of themselves.

“I think we had a very positive year,” he said, mentioning that the team finished ninth overall. “Two tournament victories is always great, and even finishing in the middle of the pack in Waterloo Region is tough.”

The girls won their home tournament at the end of September, winning all four games. They also took the top spot, for the second year in a row, just one week later at the Rockway tournament. They ended the regular season with a record of 6-7-0, accumulating 12 points and tied for ninth place with Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School.

Carter says there were times when the girls didn’t play as well as they could, but some games just don’t go the way you want them to.

“We had one tough game against Preston (High School in Cambridge), and we had beaten Preston twice in tournaments, but we lost to them in the regular season by one point and that kind of put us in a weaker playoff position than we thought we were going to end up in,” he said. “That cost us in the end, but these things happen. You can’t always have your best game. They played well.”

Leading the senior team were returning players Karley Sider and Nicole Cressman, but Carter also credits the newer names on the roster for their hard work and steady improvement throughout the season.

“(Cressman and Sider) had a fantastic year, as expected, but a lot of the other supporting girls really improved a lot,” he said. “We were trying to get them to focus on more individual skills, and a lot of them did improve as far as playing better defensively, or becoming a better shooter, or a better passer. You can’t just depend on two players throughout the year, so the success that we did have was because our supporting players really did improve throughout the season.”

And Carter’s message to the team?

“They are to be congratulated,” he said. “We did have a very successful year and they should be proud of themselves.”