Girls Varsity Basketball takes the Dub

The very first Varsity girls game of the 2016- 2017 school year was played against Community of Peace Academy. Lauren Erickson, a starter, and number 30 says, “We did pretty good, we took the dub.” PACT won by 37 seven points, the final score being 48- 11.

This game took place on Friday, December the 2nd. The game took place in Community of Peace Academy in Saint Paul. The game started at 7:30 pm, like most varsity games.

Lauren Erickson told us about the game. She says, “Some highlights are that we won! We had restrictions and we still won.” At the beginning of the game, Coach Anderson told the players that they would not be allowed to fast break, they had to pass through the play at least 5 times, the point guard had to dribble up with her non- dominant hand, and they weren’t allowed to fast break."

Lauren continued by saying, "He said that if it became a problem or if the other team began to win. Eventually, the restrictions went down to passing through the play only 2 times, they were allowed to fast break, and the point guard could dribble down however she wanted. The restrictions were hard, but they helped us run through the plays and do our job.”

In basketball, there are 5 people on the court at one time. You have the point guard, Lauren Erickson, and she brings up the ball. The center, Sophie Willems (nicknamed Willie), she is the tall, big center. You have the forwards, they are there to help the point guard, typically they are good shooters, that would be Sophie Hudson and Sara Nelson. Then you have the post, who helps out down low by the center, that’s Callie Fries. The Varsity coach is Dave Anderson, and the Jv coach and Varsity assistant coach is Jen Churchill.

If you have just five people on the court, they get tired pretty fast, so you have subs. The subs for Varsity are Ella Olson, Gracie Moran, Kira Hamann, Alessandra (Ali) DeLain, Olivia Martin, Shania Holland, Christa Saunders, and Gianna Swanson.

When asked, Lauren said that the team can improve by not throwing balls at people, throwing a good, hard pass to their teammate. By trying harder, and doing their best.

Lauren says that the reason that the Panthers won was that the other team was worse. She also said that her team talked a lot and communicated about the position of the ball, and who is guarding who.

The game was away, therefore, there were not that many people there. The team was thankful for the few fans that were there. Since it was an away game, there were only like 5 fans watching and cheering. Erickson believes we could get more fans to go to their games by being better and letting the public know when the games are.

Erickson said the team mostly works well together and that they need to continue working on their communication and passing the ball around more. The basketball girls have a strategy of playing good defense and understanding what we are doing. The more communication the team has the better they will do during their games.

Lauren believes fans going to their games can boost their confidence as a team and help them become stronger and work harder. The girls need to communicate and work on their passes. They also need support from the alumni! “Come out and support the PACT Panthers!”