Being your team’s top scorer in three out of its first four Atlantic University Sport games will get you noticed and nobody is more aware of that than Fishbein.
It’s no big deal as far as the Waterloo native is concerned because she believes it works to Memorial’s advantage.
“If they are hard on me, I can get the ball to Brittany (Dalton) or Ally (Forsey) or Jen (Parsons) in the post,” said Fishbein, who plays the wing. “It’s all about the team effort. We all need to be aggressive and score the ball.”
The Lady Hawks are without Vicki Thistle, their top scorer last season, until after the Christmas break due to an injury. In the meantime, Fishbein has stepped up and become the type of team leader all successful teams possess. Her overall improvement is the product of experience.
“It just comes from playing,” said the Bluevale Collegiate graduate. “I don’t have that nervous, rookie feeling. After a couple of years, you know where you need to be and what you need to do.”
She said her success so far this season had a lot to do to the work she and her teammates did during the summer.
“We all stayed here (in St. John’s) and worked really hard and worked together as a team, and I think that helped improve our chemistry.”
Like all players, there are things she needs to work on. “I think my ball handling has improved, but it can still improve a lot more,” she said with a smile.
There’s lots more to do in all areas of the game.
“There’s a role to fill on the team in terms of leadership, bringing up the ball every now and then and being an all-around better player in terms of contributing points and making sure I’m still getting in there for rebounds and breaking the press … that sort of stuff,” she said.
Fishbein, who also leads Memorial in minutes played with a 33.50 average, worked on gaining confidence going into her second year and that’s carried over into this season.
She did have specific personal goals she wanted to meet, such as hitting the outside shot, something she did pretty well in the pre-season. “I need to get back in the gym and shoot some more now so that it will continue during the season,” she said.
Sea-Hawks coach Doug Partridge isn’t surprised Fishbein is beginning to blossom into an all-around effective player.
“For those who do the work and develop their game, this is about the time they begin to show their skills,” said Partridge. “They have enough reps and enough confidence to begin to demonstrate what they can do.”
He said Fishbein has “all the physical abilities to be a dominant defender. She is working on her focus and attention to detail and rotations.”
Fishbein’s start has been impressive and the home crowd noticed.
When she’s wasn’t scrambling on the floor for a loose ball, she was using her quickness for a couple of steals in each in the season opening games against Cape Breton Capers.
Her hustle was perhaps most obvious late in the second quarter of the second game against the Capers when she missed a three-pointer, but raced untouched to the basket to grab her own rebound and put it in.
He contributions weren’t limited to simple aggressiveness. She scored 22 points with eight rebounds in the first game against Cape Breton and followed that up with a careerhigh 26 points and eight rebounds in the second game of the season.
Heading into last weekend’s bye week, Fishbein was tied for fourth place in conference scoring with a 21 points per-game average. She was leading the conference in three pointers with nine in four games and she was eighth in rebounding with seven per game.
It’s early, but what Fishbein has shown in the first four games is that she is not only getting points and making plays, she’s doing those things at key points in the game.
She’s become an impact player, striding up and down the court with purpose — a player who makes plays that changes momentum in a game or scores when the outcome is still on the line.
Retrieved From: http://news.therecord.com/Sports/article/818593
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