Island Time: The VIU Game

Friday we headed over to Vancouver Island for another exhibition game against Vancouver Island University(formerly Malaspina). I always enjoy heading over to the island whether it be for games or adventure but we were here to battle a couple of  very good teams. We must have had some van legs because we got off to a horrible start against VIU. We were down in the first quarter 17-5. Not happy with this I gave the girls some smelling salts at the quarter and they came out and won the second quarter 16-15. We also had a great third quarter and shot the ball well. We won that quarter 20-18. That quarter was easily our best offensive output of the season and of the last two years. We have been working a lot on our offense in the past weeks and the girls are starting to get comfortable with the speed at the college level. The smelling salts wore off in the 4th quarter and we were outscored 18-8. Two bad quarters left the final score 68-49. We need 4 quarters to win ball games in this league. I was pretty happy overall with the girls performance but our lack of size really hurts us on the glass. VIU is a good team and they are big and athletic. We were out rebounded 40-23 and I would say that at least half of those rebounds turned into second chance scores for them. Our initial defense is pretty good but we give up way to many rebounds. We have to continue to work on our rebounding if we are to challenge some teams. A highlight in this game was our free throw shooting. We shot 80% in the first half and 71% for the game. Thats what I expect from these girls. We have to make our free throws and layups. Special Note: Allison Black had a free throw that was perfect.....she nailed it. Brittany Harteveld had a great game shooting the ball and was the high scorer with 23 points. Naomi also had one of her better games with 9 points, 3 rebounds and some great energy on defense. As I said, offensively we were better, 36% shooting from the floor and 40% from the three point line. A pretty good game overall but we would be up for a challenge the following day against Camosun.