"That's real nice..."

To quote one of our Canterbury students, this past week was "real nice..." Last week, I commented that by Thursday morning, I would know a lot more about our team. And I do. After scrapping our way to a good road win at South Side, we went on the road and dismantled a 4-1 Wawasee team. Last night, we finally returned home to play again. I was concerned that this might be a "trap" game, a term coaches use to describe a game you ought to win, but might struggle with because you aren't as focused or prepared as you need to be. On the heels of two big road wins (avenging losses from the previous year) I was concerned we wouldn't be sharp. Wrong!

The girls came out on fire at both ends of the floor, perhaps exceeding the tremendous effort we displayed at Wawasee. When the dust settled, we had scored 90 points, a school record. We did it without any full-court pressure. Our starting five played less than 20 minutes each. 11 of our 12 rostered players hit the scoring column. We held a second consecutive team to a paltry 35 points despite playing at a fast pace that produces many more possessions. Overall, we were very pleased with the results. Even nicer is the fact that we still have a lot of room to grow.

Our final two games before Christmas, at Bethany Christian and at Blackhawk Christian, will probably be departures from most of our early season schedule. They are the first 1A teams we will play this season (Lakewood Park is the only one after Christmas). They have struggled through the first half of the season. Given the dominating performances of the past two nights, our primary challenge will be to stay at the high level we've reached recently and not slip back. As we remind the kids often, if we're not getting better, then we're getting worse! Our goal is to get better every night. To this point, I have been very pleased with our progress.