The Pen High Lakers junior girls basketball team advanced to the Okanagan Valley championship after winning the zone title.
The Lakers captured the zones as they whipped Princeton 71-29. Five players collected 10 points or more, led by Jollee Perrier with with 11. She also contributed five boards and four steals. Callie Anderson, Katie Huston, Jean Grakul and Hannah Clarke each recorded 10 points. The foursome also collected four steals.
“I thought our girls did a great job of executing our offence,” said Lakers coach Dustin Hyde. “Princeton played both man and zone defence so it was nice that we were able to focus in on some key movements and patterns that we have been working on the past few weeks.”
Intensity and disciplined play on defence is what stood out to Hyde, who was also impressed by the significant improvement of Princeton.
“I felt like they were a new team,” said Hyde, adding that they defeated Princeton in a previous game by more than 50 points. “They played much better defence and shot the ball well.”
The Lakers opened the zone championship by dismantling Oliver 73-7 as Clarke and Perrier put up 16 points. Grakul chipped in 14 points, including six coming from three-point range. Grakul impressed her coach when she caused several turnovers and was a problem for Oliver’s guards. Hyde also loved the play of Huston who played hard, diving for balls, was strong in collecting rebounds and hit open jump shots. She finished with 10 points, seven boards and six steals.
The Lakers will now host the valley championship this weekend and Hyde looks forward to a great tournament. He added that securing the top seed is great.
“Our squad at times has felt beat up and mentally exhausted, so to earn first-place in the zone and secure a top seed leaves our girls feeling positive and confident,” said Hyde. “We need that at this point. But we are not at all disillusioned by winning the zone. The valley is incredibly tough. We will have two solid top-five provincially ranked teams and three honorable mentions in the top 15.”
With four players out with an injury, three being starters, Hyde said the weekend will be a grind.
“All I can hope is that our girls give it their all and compete on every possession,” he said. “We do that, and we should be in every game we play.”
