A VERY SPECIAL WEEKEND

Sorry it has taken me a couple of days to get this up but I was away celebrating our outstanding weekend. After a team lowpoint on the island against VIU we refocused and had a great week of practice before our games against Douglas. It was the first time we had the whole team there for every practice. I was very pleased with our effort throughout the week leading up to the game. The girls were fired up and ready to make a statement. And man, did we make at statement. It was one of the most miraculous turnarounds in such a short period of time that i have seen on any team that I have been a part of. We beat Douglas by 18 points, 63-45 and outplayed them in every aspect of the game. The girls were outstanding, our defense was as good as I have ever seen it and we finished everything offensively. We got off to a slow start which seemed to be the remnants of our poor play in the past but we remained positive and believed in ourselves. By the end of the first quarter we were down two points and never looked back from there. We were up 5 at half and although I was incredibly happy with our performance I challenged the team to not be satisfied. We blew Douglas out in the second half and made a statement with an 18 point win against a good team. This confirms that we can play and compete with any team in the league. I think I was in shock with our play. I was so proud of the girls. We shot 65% from the floor in the second half and 75% from the 3pt line for the game. Britt Harteveld was unconscious, hitting pretty much everything she threw up and ended the game with 30 points. Charlotte contributed 12 points and Chelsey had 9 but it was our outstanding and aggressive defense that made the statement for the game. Our rebounding lead to fast break scores which we haven't had in awhile. I challenged Allie and Nicola before the game to take it to their big girls, to believe that they can play with anyone in the league and they did that and more, completely outplaying them and putting their stamp on the game. It was a true team effort, a magical performance that confirms when you have a group of committed individuals who believe, trust and support one another anything is possible. On any given night...................

Even when I/we win i lose. Allison had to remind me of the bet i shook on with her and Allie after the game against VIU. I announced that I would do their team laundry for the rest of the year if we beat Douglas. I had completely forgotten about until I was reminded on the court. The girls went crazy much to the confusion of the crowd. Thanks to Allie's dad who gave me some laundry detergent and some bounce to get me started. 

Saturday night Douglas came back roaring. It was a great game to be part of, very aggressive. We battled valiantly but Douglas was too much and we may have been to spent from the night before. They showed what needed to be done to come back after a tough loss. Our defense was still very good but our offense disappeared as a result of their tough man to man defense. Role reversal from the night before. It sure felt good though to be in a competitive game. I respect Katie(Douglas coach) a lot and it was great to have them up for a couple of games over the weekend. She has always been very supportive of me and our program and I thank her for that. I am slowly getting to know her players as well and they are a great group. Douglas beat us 64-42. Charlotte was the high scorer with 16 points while Britt had 12. 

Thanks again to everyone for their support. We are on a bit of a break now. We have a couple of exhibition games against North West Indian College on the 5/6 of December. We will start back up with league at the beginning of January.....see you then......coach

THOUGHTS ON PRACTICE

WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO, EXCELLENCE, THEN, IS NOT AN ACT, BUT A HABIT. -Aristotle.

TOUGH WEEKEND

Wow......not even sure what to say about the weekend. Simply, we did not play well at all in our second and third league games of the season. We had already played VIU this year and had a very good performance against them. Friday's game started well for us as they came out in a press. We were very effective at breaking the press for scores. We were so effective that they took the press off which is what we didn't need since we now had to go into our half court offense. Offensively, this weekend, we were aweful. We scored 12 points in the first half of both Friday and Saturday's games. We did not do a very effective job at translating what we do in practice to what we do in the game. We need to learn how to play the game more effectively and learn how to read defenses and take opportunities when they present themselves. Right now we think way too much about what we are doing, our offense is stagnant and predictible with very little ball movement. In game 1 we were 21% for 2pt F.G's and 9%(1-11) from the three point line. We were also killed on the offensive glass in the first half. They had 20 offensive rebounds mostly for put back scores. Because of this we were not able to run the ball at all. I believe we did not have one fast break score. Final score was 60-36. Our bright spot was our shooting from the free throw line, 72%. Britt Shalagan played well going 3-7 from the floor and 3/4 from the free throw line for 9 points, our top scorer.

Saturday's game wasn't better. I was pretty frustrated at half as I felt we did not even show up ready to play. We were timid and lacked competitiveness. We did respond better offensively in the second half putting up 30 points but we seem to be able score well when the game is already over and when other teams are using their bench and working on their offense. We have not played well for a whole game yet and we have not had all players playing well together for a whole game. Final score was 78-42. 12% shooting in the first half and 46% in the second half, 63% from the line.

I did feel pretty good about our offensive work in practice last week which gives me confidence this week and for our upcoming games. Unfortunately it did not translate into good play this weekend. I was pretty frustrated because we are better than this and we really need to expect more from ourselves. We must change our practice habits working with quality. We cannot just show up to practice and go through the motions which i really think we do sometimes. This week we need everyone working hard on what they each need to do to get the job done and to get better. We have two monster games against Douglas at home Friday and Saturday at 6 pm.

Thanks to those parents who showed up to support us. Sorry for the poor performance......Coach

1-0 QUEST WOMEN WIN FIRST LEAGUE GAME

Friday night the women travelled to Abbottsford to play Columbia Bible College. We had already beaten CBC in exhibition play but this was another historic game since it was our first league game at Quest. The women have worked really hard over the last two years to put themselves into a position to compete in the league. The women had a great first half. Defensively we were very good. I gave the task of shutting down their best player to Charlotte Lau who took the challenge with enthusiasm and competitiveness. Ashley Rudanec of CBC shoots the ball really well and was coming off a game where she hit 6 three pointers. Charlotte did an outstanding job holding their best scorer to 1-7 shooting from the field, 0-3 from the three point line and a total of 4 points for the game. Defense is always a team effort and the Quest women have worked hard to make this part of their game consistent. With the good first half we were up 40-15. I thought we could have played better offensively, making more layups and running more effective half court offenses(coaches are never happy). The good teams in the league will not allow us to get second chances after we miss our initial lay up or if we do not run a good offense. We did have a big advantage inside and it was our goal that if we were not able to run the ball then we needed to get it inside to Allie and Nicola. Our plan worked and we were able to get some easy scores inside while pressuring them defensively into turnovers which led to easy scores. Our third quarter was not so good. We did not score for the first three minutes which was pretty frustrating as we were playing down to their level and not playing up to ours. We finally got going but were only able to outscore them by 3 in the third. We went on to have a decent 4th quarter and we ended up winning our first league game 70-35. I was happy for the girls, we are now 1-0. We had really balanced scoring this game which is what we need. Allie Chalke was great and led all scorers with 21 points on 8-12 shooting. Nicola had 13 points but needs to more consistent with her touch inside to make us a contender against the good teams in the league. Our shooting percentage also needs to be higher if we are to challenge for a playoff spot. We shot 35 percent against a team that let us shoot from wherever we wanted. Outside of Allie our shooting percentage was horrible. Chelsey 2-8(great from the line though 5-6), Britt Shalagan 2-7. Allison Black 1-5, Charlotte 2-12(3-4 FT), Nicola 7-15 and Britt Harteveld 5-19.

This week it is back to practice as we get ready for a road trip to Nanaimo where we will play Vancouver Island University. Hope to see you there and thanks to all the parents, family and friends who were at the game on Friday......coach Hann

BCCAA TOP 10

As voted on by the coaches:

1. Camosun
2. Capilano
3. UBC-O
4. VIU
5. UNBC
6. Langara
7. Douglas
8. Kwantlen
9. Quest
10. CBC

LAST EXHIBITION GAME

Friday night we played our last exhibition game against the 6th ranked Langara Falcons. We were short benched again for this game with Hajia still away and Britt Shalagan looking after her foot. The women came out and had a great first half playing very well defensively. Langara took an early 12-9 lead at the quarter and took at 7 point lead into the half. Naomi Hughes Hall did a great job on their scorer, Virginia Watson limiting her to 7 points in the first half. We still struggled with our offense though. We now have Allie Chalke back playing which allows us to play a 3 out 2 post offense with Nicola inside but at this time we do not move that well in it. Coming out of the half we had a very poor third quarter where we were outscored 23-10. I think this was a result of having a short bench and working really hard defensively in the first half, a stagnant motion offense and Langara playing better out of their motion offense. The third quarter proved to be the game and we were beaten soundly 61-39. We just didn't seem to have the energy in the second half to play with a Langara team who was platooning 5 on 5 off and playing with great energy. We really struggled offensivley shooting 9-47 from the field for 19%. Wow. We still managed to attack offensively though as we got to the line 33 times for 64%. We need to start moving better out of our offense and start knocking down open jumpers. Allie Chalke had a good game with 10 points and 8 rebounds as did Nicola, who played one of her better games scoring 9 points and grabbing 4 rebounds. Allie and Nicola are learning how to play together and should be a handful as they become more confident as players and within our offense. Charlotte Lau also had 11 points.

This is a big week for us. We are getting ready for our first league game on Friday night vs CBC, a team we have beat this year. We will have to have a good week of practice in order to play well against CBC. Our offense will be the focus. Thanks to the parents for support at our Langara game. Special thanks goes to Bob for the wonderful Starbucks Americano I got before the game. Hope that becomes a tradition. I guess we will have to win a couple games first though. Hope to see you at CBC.....Coach Hann