The Davidson Raiders senior girls basketball team’s 43-33 win over the Hanley Sabers at home last Wednesday never appeared to be in doubt during the first three quarters, but then the Sabers started showing their strong athleticism in the final minutes of the game.
Down 39-16 heading into the fourth the Sabers finally started breaking through the Raiders defence thanks to strong drives by point guard Megan Fairbairn to get the ball in close to the Davidson basket where forwards Jill Kroeger and Taylor Shpyth were waiting to drain a few shots. In those last 10 minutes Hanley put up more points than they did in the first 30, but just didn’t have enough time to complete the comeback.
“It was our first game of the season and we’ve had several practices already cancelled because of weather, so we’re pretty raw,” said Sabers coach Kelly Graham. “That’s about what I expected (is) to come out there and make some mistakes, but by the end of the game we were starting to learn and play together. As the game got going we got better. We lost, but I still feel pretty good about it.”
Both the Raiders (3-1) and Sabers (0-1) got off to a slow start in the game with each team firing bricks on their scoring opportunities during the opening minutes. The Raiders were the first team to wake up halfway through the first leaning on strong defensive play from guard Tina Stone who swatted a number of Hanley attempts and post Kim Baldwin who wasn’t afraid to put herself at risk by fighting hard defensively against the Sabers.
Leading 14-6 after one, the Sabers started making a charge, but Davidson matched them along the way bringing the score to 21-14 at the half. The third quarter is when the Raiders put the game away thanks to point guard Sydney Booker and her prowess moving the ball down the court and making plays and centre Cheyanne Nordmarken who made good on a number of shots staking the home side to a comfortable 39-16 lead.
“It was a really good practise game because we have been working on things like press and a couple of plays and we had a really good opportunity there to get to practise them,” said Raiders coach Karielle Willner. “That was excellent. It was really good for that. It’s always good to play Hanley because they have such raw excellent athletes. They are just going to give you a good game no matter what because they have such raw talent in terms of athleticism. It’s fun to play them.”
To read more please see the December 16 print edition of The Davidson Leader.