As I was walking out of the gym tonight after everyone left to make sure I had everything, our night custodian, Will, stopped me and asked "You know what I like about watching your team?" when I asked him what, he replied "how much pressure you put on the other team and how hard your girls play." When you get that type of unsolicited feedback, it's usually indicative that you're on the right track and tonight it was the difference in the game and it's why we were able to walk out of tonight's game with a very hard fought 15 point win.
Steve is such a good coach, that any time you play New Hope, you know that they will be prepared and they will not beat themselves. We knew that we were going to have to try to force them into some tough situation and after a slow start, we were able to do that. After losing the first quarter 13 - 5, we were able to win the middle two quarters 38 - 17. To New Hope's credit, they fought back and with about 5 minutes to go, got it back to a 6 point game. Fortunately for us, Briana McFerran stepped up in a big way. She had 10 of our 11 fourth quarter points and was just exceptional tonight.
Against Cheltenham, Dani Brusha, took over in the fourth quarter, tonight it was Briana. This might have been the most complete game that she's played for us.
Also really big for us tonight was freshman Sydney Santora. She was probably the biggest reason we went from down 8 after the 1st quarter to up 1 at the half. With senior Amelia Brown, one of our better perimeter defenders, out with an illness, freshman Mollie Martin had a great game. She scored 10 points and was relentless on defense. Continuing on the defensive theme, Nikki Sahl, for the 2nd game in a row, harassed the other teams guards and played a great defensive game.
We still have a lot of things to get better at, not starting slow is one of them, but overall, we're happy with the growth we're seeing out of our girls. They're playing selflessly and hopefully we can continue to grow as a team.