The Davidson Raiders junior girls basketball team took their competition to school at the Davidson gym Jan. 25 and 26 winning all three games they played in their home tournament on route to taking the first place honours.
Sandra Baldwin, coach of the Raiders, said Davidson was “pretty strong” at the tournament, first beating the Outlook Blues 43-28 and the Eatonia Spartans 49-19 in pool A action before moving on to the first place game, a 61-35 win over the Eston Mustangs. She said the other teams at the tournament were pretty young, comprised of mostly grades 7 and 8 players, so her team that dresses four Grade 9s proved formidable to their opponents.
“They are good leaders on the court,” Baldwin said of Grade 9 players Tina Stone (guard), Kaitlyn Baldwin (post), Cheyanne Nordmarken (wing) and Sydney Booker (point guard).
Cheyanne was particularly strong on the offensive side against the Mustangs scoring a team high 18 points including a couple long threes. Sydney netted 13 points during the blowout that saw Davidson go up 19-3 in the first quarter and 35-9 by the half.
Tina was all over the court during the final game coming down with numerous rebounds and playing a quick transition game to get the ball back up to her wings, while Kaitlyn was solid on the defensive side wrestling for any balls that an opposing Mustang dared try advance into the key.
“My girls thought Davidson was going to be difficult to begin with and they were a little bit slow getting out of the gate,” said Mustangs coach Marea Olafson. “Finally, it was like ‘oh, we can play with Davidson so let’s play,’ but we started slow.”
The Mustangs dominated the third quarter scoring 18 points to Davidson’s 10, bringing the score to 45-27. The home side came back to form in the final 8 minutes, putting the game away for good and taking first place with the 26-point victory.
Olafson said the tournament as a whole was “great” for their club, as it let their younger players get in some game action and grow more as a team.
“We were able to win a few basketball games,” she said. “The Grade 7s are getting stronger and the Grade 9s are helping them. Our team building is really strong right now.”
Baldwin said her girls played extremely well together as a team even though she mixed her players up position-wise throughout the final game.
“They still went out and passed well to each other,” she said. “They made sure everybody touched the ball and they spread out the points.”
The Raiders coach said the junior girls have enjoyed a solid season so far and they look forward to playoff action come the beginning of March.
“I expect us to be at districts in the final game,” said Baldwin. “That’s our goal.”