Spirits Fall To Cougars

For the better part of three quarters the Vanier Spirits junior girls basketball team hung tight like glue to the Briercrest Christian Academy Cougars JV girls team.

But then fatigue and foul troubles accompanied with an almost simultaneously a strong forward press saw the Spirits hopes vanquished.

In the end the Cougars dropped the Spirits 47 - 27.

Ryan Gottselig head coach of the Vanier Spirits said despite the loss the team played well.

“I was really happy how the girls played. They were down four (points) after three (quarters) but we just sort of ran out of gas,” Gottselig said.

“We were up against a real solid JV team and we played really hard to hang with them for that long,” he said.

The BCA Cougars is a team made up of players from both Briercrest Christian Academy, as well as Cornerstone Christian School.. By allowing the two schools to join forces it allows students at both schools the opportunity to play basketball.

The Spirits ran into major foul problems in with about 3:30 left in the third quarter giving the Cougars many bonus throws. The Spirits had 12 fouls in the third quarter.

With the Cougars winning the free throws bonanza in the third quarter they kicked off the fourth quarter with a strong forward press.

The Cougars’ press would see the team force four successive turnovers and resultant baskets.

“We obviously got a little aggressive on D there which hurt us. I think we took 12 fouls in the third quarter.”

“It’s something we talked about after (the game) we need to be more disciplined when playing D.”

The press was accompanied with “a very good job of trapping the basketball after rebounds.”

“There was times we held it and times we didn’t hold it well,” he said.

The Spirits have ran into the press for the last month with Gottselig saying it’s “standard” fare in the game.

Fatigue caught up on the Spirits.“They were causing turnovers different times during the game and as I said, we were running out of gas,” Gottselig said.

“I’m very happy that was obviously a very good effort for our girls.”

The Scoresheet