The Senior Girl’s Eckville Aces basketball team continues its strong season with a crucial playoff victory over Bentley on Wednesday, February 15.
The game was never really in question as Coach Cody Magneson was able to rest his veterans en route to a 44-28 victory on their home floor.
“The girls played strong and won,” he said. “At this point in the season, it becomes more about the wins and losses rather then how you play. We were resting girls to avoid fatigue and injury so the score isn’t necessarily indicative of success. We came out strong right from the start and now we are just fine tuning some things.”
The game was also an opportunity for the Aces to add new wrinkles to their offensive repertoire, with the usually inside focused squad suddenly let it fly from beyond the three point arc.
“We are trying to find our confidence with our shooting,” Magneson said. “We know shooting can just be a head game sometimes but we know the girls are great shooters and they just need to start hitting them in games now. You can tell the girls have confidence when they are shooting more. If they don’t want to shoot then that means we aren’t confident.”
The three-point game will also allow the paint to open up for veteran forwards Casey Belway and Delaini Gillett.
“Shoot it and then our posts will get the rebound if you miss,” Magneson said. “We had some leeway against Bentley, they decided to play our posts really tight so that opens up the shots for the girls. A lot of the strong teams that we will face will recognize our strengths and weaknesses. We need to have both shooting and our post games against elite teams.”
Magneson further emphasized the importance of offensive diversity being key to post-season success.
“Good teams can do everything so we need to have good shooting and good post play,” he said.
The next step in the Aces season comes on Monday, February 27 on their home court where they will play the league championship game against Caroline.
“They play an aggressive 3-2 zone that gets in the face of our guards,” Magneson said. “As long as our guards keep their cool and pass the ball, we can dominate inside. We rely on our posts and they are our veterans and Caroline isn’t super strong inside so if we work it inside, we will have success.”
He added that the aces trust their strengths and that “it will be the biggest game of our season so please come and support us.”
reporter@eckvilleecho.com