Traditionally, Paris District High School hasn't been one of the superpowers in senior girls basketball.
But Paris enjoyed some early success this season, beating Pauline Johnson Collegiate in its first game, giving the Panthers a huge morale boost.
"I'll be honest; It was ugly and scrappy," said Paris coach Dani Hawkins.
"I don't know how many jump balls there were, which would give you an indication of the style of game.
"The kids played tough. It was a positive for sure, to get a win."
A deep bench certainly helped in that win.
Hawkins kept all 13 players who tried out for the team. And all can dress for games.
"There's no point in turning away one or two kids," said the coach.
"And I do have enough uniforms for 13".
"Everybody gets some time. I try to get every kid in for at least one shift per half."
Hawkins said she leans on Avery Hamill as the team's leader.
"Avery is a solid ball player and Suzanne Kelley is a feisty athlete," said the coach. "And we've actually got not bad size."
However, the team doesn't have a lot of basketball experience.
"I have two girls who are brand new to the sport and then most of my kids outside of that have only played school ball."
The two new players are Bri Nelson and Sabrina Gill, who are behind the starting five of Hamill and Kelley, in the back court, and Sarah Pheiffer, Megan Willett and Courtney Boehmer, in the front court.
Also contributing off the bench are Lauren Miller, Micaela Hanley, Hope Blackmore, Alisia Kipp, Emily Lynch and Leah vanStuyvenberg.
After that first win, the Panthers worked on several things.
"Offensively, we try to keep things simple but I'm trying to get them to recognize and take advantage of openings," said Hawkins, whose team is 1-4 heading into the second half of the season. "We just started to see that against Assumption.
"To be honest, for us to put up 27 points against Assumption was a positive. The kids felt good about it."
"It was the first time as a team we were actually playing good positional defence. I believe I can get any group of girls to play good, team defence with a little bit of knowledge and hard work."
With the season at its halfway point, Hawkins said her team is ready to travel the home stretch as they look to get better each game and see where that takes them.
"We just want to work on improvement," she said. "We're trying to learn each game so the next game we can add something else and the game after that we'll add something else.
"They come and they work. I have lots of kids doing multiple sports. They're kids that are just interested in being part of a school team."
Retrieved From: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2014/10/06/high-school-girls-basketball-panthers-eye-improvement
