Squeaking sneakers, a bouncing ball and some voices yelling “BOX..SHOT” can only mean one thing: Basketball season is on its way. Cabrini women’s basketball season ended last year with a eight-point lost against Marywood in the first round of playoffs. So has the time between then and now been enough for the Lady Cavs to advance skills, plays and endurance?
The women’s basketball team have been training nonstop. From summer-league to 6 a.m. pool workouts. Their first official practice was Oct. 15 to prepare them for their first scrimmage against Haverford College on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012 at 7 p.m.
During the scrimmage against Haverford, both teams had one goal in mind – winning. This game would not count against their record but it was clearly obvious on the court that neither team wanted to lose.
The Cabrini women definitely started very strong on defense. They stuck with Haverford forcing them to almost three shot clock violations in the first three minutes.
However, the women were a little slow on their offense not being able to score against the Haverford team in the first three minutes. They begin to pick up their offense four minutes into the game. Is this what we have to look forward to this season?
One thing for sure, Haverford was trying to match up their defense to that of Cabrini’s but they were certainly no match. Haverford continued to foul Cabrini placing them at the foul line.
“We work a lot of our plays out offensively and defensive drills during practice, but we also work on our foul shooting. Many of the drills could be from having a goal of making 10 out of 10 foul shots or the most foul shots in three minutes,” captain Colleen Stewart said.
The Cavaliers definitely proved they were masters of the foul line during Wednesday’s scrimmage only missing three foul shots out of the possible 10. The Lady Cavs started a little slow on the offense but soon they begin to pick up to take a seven-point lead to Haverford at 10 minutes and 36 seconds.
The coaches of both teams were definitely very much so involved and engaged and didn’t hold their tongues in correcting mistakes and telling each player to get their hands up. With less than five minutes left in the first 20 minutes, the Lady Cavs were down by only 1 point after losing their seven-point lead. It left spectators, coaches, and teammates questioning how well will they do under pressure?
“I believe that we definitely came harder this year in comparison to this time last year. We definitely want it more especially since we were so close last year,” Stewart said.
By the end of the first round, both teams put up a good fight to tie the first game with a tie of 21-21. Coach Pearson is definitely hopeful that her team will go harder this year more than ever. She is sure that if they keep up good defense and continue to do well on foul shots that everything else will fall into place.
Do the Lady Cavs have what it takes to win the CSACs this year? It’s only a matter of time before we find out. But by Wednesday’s scrimmage the season is looking highly promising.
