KITCHENER — Emily Webber and Jeff Roth believe the St. Mary’s Eagles are on the verge of something special.
It’s just going to take a bit of time for all the pieces to fall into place.
The Eagles continued their impressive District 8 senior girls basketball season on Wednesday with a 58-29 win over the visiting St. Benedict Saints. St. Mary’s is now 5-0 won-lost in D8 play and 10-1 overall, with the best perhaps yet to come.
“We’re definitely going to go a long way this year, for sure,” said Webber, the Eagles’ fifth-year captain. “We need to get our defence going to its full potential and then we’ll be great.”
How great?
“We’re talking about getting to OFSAA (Ontario championship). This is our year. We are confident.”
Head coach Roth also believes the team is capable of making some serious noise before it’s all said and done.
“They (the players) have to get used to us, we have to get used to them and they have to get used to each other. It’s slowly happening but there’s a chance to do something really, really special this year,” said Roth, who is assisted by senior boys coach Jason Hergott.
The Eagles have undergone a dramatic makeover since losing the D8 title to the St. David Celtics last year.
Only four players are back from that team — Webber, Natasha Stoyakovich, Shelby Dixon and Erika Ancion — while seven players have joined the team from the junior ranks. The group of seven includes three — Laura Boterman, Kaitlyn Schenck and Alysha Hergott — who are in the starting lineup with Webber and Stoyakovich.
“With the junior talent that has come up, this is probably the most talent we’ve had in a very long time,” said Webber.
Boterman and Schenck scored 14 points each for the Eagles in a game they never trailed against St. Benedict. They built a 20-7 lead after the first quarter as Roth made frequent substitutions throughout.
Meaghan Mason had 16 points for the 1-4 Saints, who received an outstanding effort from guard Andrea Zapanza. The rebuilding Saints rely on speed and the five-foot tall Zapanza is one of three players in the starting lineup of coach Kevin Fratarcangeli’s team that fails to crack the 66-inch mark. Rachel Grant comes in at five-foot-five while Anne Logo is the league’s smallest player at four-foot-10.
“I just have to do everything faster . . . run faster, pass faster and shoot faster,” smiled Logo.
The Eagles have won a tournament at Eastwood this season, while their only loss came to Centre Wellington of Fergus in the final of another tournament.
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The Eagles will have to go through CWDHS before they can get to OFSSA. In their one meeting this year they came up short.
ReplyDeleteAlthough SMHS' best player, Kaitlyn Schenck, did not play in that game.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely say that CW & SMHS are on the doorstep in terms of an OFSAA berth. That said, the road to that OFSAA berth will go through either WCI or St. John's. We'll see who is peaking at the right time come November!