The Charles Hays Secondary School (CHSS) senior girls basketball team took part in the BC provincial championships and came away with one win and a ranking of 15th in the province.
Going in as the 14th seed, the girls dropped one spot by winning one game and losing three.
“I really think they did the best they could in each game,” coach Anna Ashley said. “I was happy with how they played.”
It’s tough for remote teams like the Rainmakers, Ashley said, because the senior girls only play 11 games all year, whereas bigger schools in urban centres might play five games a week.
“The girls did really well but they just don’t have as much experience playing,” Ashley said.
She also said the team only brought four starters, so they had to call up three juniors, not to mention the senior girls were a smaller team to begin with — Ashley said her tallest girl was five-foot-eight while they tried to defend girls that were six feet or taller.
“Our defence was on and it was really good but it was hard to box out girls. They were basically putting their hands overtop of our girls and getting the ball. But I was really proud of them because they didn’t let the score stand in the way of just playing as hard as they could,” Ashley said.
The tournament started against a tough Vernon squad that was ranked third and ended up coming in second. The Rainmakers struggled against a much taller and stronger team, losing 98-31.
In the second game against G.W. Graham, Ashley said the girls played a strong first quarter, but just didn’t have the bench to keep it up. The final score was 73-32 for the opposition.
The third game was against St. Michael’s University, a game the Rainmakers lost by nine.
“The girls played really hard and it’s a game we maybe could have won,” Ashley said.
In the final game, CHSS played a strong game against David Thompson, prevailing 54-37.
“It was nice to end on a win. I was just really happy with how they came together and never gave up on each other and were always positive,” Ashley said.
Ruby Mason was named player of the game three times, while Suttira Johansen was also named player of the game once. Both stood out throughout the tournament to Ashley.
“They were playing super hard defence, they were in people’s faces, they were boxing out, they were doing all the things they need to do,” she said.
Besides those two, the coach also liked what she saw from Carly Cochrane and Brooke Andreesen.
Looking to next season, the Rainmakers will lose four or five graduating students, but Ashley said the team will still be relatively strong next year.
“There’s four Grade 11s that will remain and all of those girls started, and then there are two girls that played that were Grade 10 and Grade 9. We still have a fairly strong crew.”
