Lions could not complete the comeback
Lewis Chaitov
Staff Writer
The York Lions left the fans unsatisfied, as they lost their home opener 66-51 to the McMaster Marauders. The stands were full, with supporters present for both teams—each displaying their affection from play to play when their team dominated. Throughout the beginning stages, the Lions were able to keep par with McMaster but faltered in the later parts of the game.
The two teams seemed to be very sluggish in the first half of the game, with the score tied at 26-26. Rookie Hayley Finn put six points on the scoreboard and Kayla Pangos, in her third season at York, put nine points on the scoreboard. Finn and Pangos brought to the court in the first half what head coach Bill Pangos is trying to instill in all his players: speed and hustle.
“We had a player injured,” says Coach Pangos. “We really played well in the first half. The injury really hurt us. Our rotations were off, she is a key post we have, fatigue set in and defensively we struggled. But we still did some key things tonight hopefully we can come back tomorrow.”
The Lions really struggled—missing so many shots that should have passed through the net. McMaster focused on their strengths in the second half—which were otherwise non-existent in the first.
The Marauders outscored the Lions in the third and fourth quarters with Katie Knight leading the scoring, hitting four of five three-point attempts, matching Finn’s game stats. The Marauders dominated the boards, which gave the Lions fewer opportunities to score.
Lions players after the loss want to forget this game and move forward to winning the next.
The positives to take from this game are: Nadia Qahwash—in her normal hustle mode, stealing the ball away three times from Mcmaster. Brittany Szockyj—the team captain put seven points on the board. Llyandra Kerr—with seven strong rebounds off the boards. Courtney Osborne and Kayla Pangos both had five strong defensive rebounds. Last year rebounding off the boards seemed to be York’s major problem—the team has much improved in this statistic. With 19 games left in the season, this game was a wake up call.
The Lions need to come out strong and play hard all 40 minutes. A majority of this team worked out this off-season on their strength and conditioning, which has really improved this season. Just a little more fine tunings will bring this club around. The coach has lots of confidence in his new recruits.
