Even with their season on the line, the Vanier Spirits didn't quit. The first placed Peacock Toilers defeated the Spirits 57-43 in the senior girls basketball league final on Tuesday evening at SIAST. This was the second year in a row the Toilers team brought home the trophy.
Neither team played strong defensively in the first half, nor could either team get their shots to fall as they were tied at 20 at the half time break. During the break, the Toilers were told a solid message from their coaches.
“To not stop shooting. We had beautiful looks in the first half. When you looked at the score, it was 20-all, we would have thought that both teams played outstanding defence, but I didn’t think so in our case,” said Peacock’s head coach, Renee Verge. “I thought our defence needed to step up and we just had to keep shooting and eventually they would fall or our posts would start to clean up. That is what happened in the third — we stepped it up defensively, our shots started to go in and our posts started to clean up.”
With a tough message sent at the half time break by Toilers coaches, Peacock seemed to wake up and play their style of tough, almost smothering defence.
“They always come out with strong defence and we were hoping we could try to penetrate more from the outside and get it into our posts, but Peacock was strong on the ball, so it was hard for us to get it in,” said Vanier’s guard, Molly Cox.
With the Toilers playing tough defence, they were able to limit the Spirits to just eight points in the third quarter.
“I think we just took the gas off the pedal, so it was hard for us to get back after,” said Cox. “We stopped going for the ball and it didn’t feel like we wanted it as much. Peacock was really strong on the boards and we stopped boxing out and they got in under us.”
Spirits' head coach, Bob Gottselig added: “Peacock came out in the third quarter and shot the ball reasonably well and turned that game around. As I anticipated coming into this game, we had to slow those outside shooters down and we didn’t in the third quarter and that is what turned the game around.”
For more on this story, read an upcoming edition of the Times-Herald.
