With a young team with as many grade 9 players as senior players, there are bound to be some bumps this season for the Grand Forks Secondary (GFSS) senior girls basketball team.
Despite losing all three games at a tournament in Osoyoos this past weekend, the Wolves improved in most areas on the floor.
"We had to combine the junior and senior programs this year at the school so we have a lot of young and inexperienced players this year on the team," said head coach Craig Lindsay, who is in his first year at the helm of the GFSS senior Wolves. "The younger players may lack experience and finesse but they don't lack in hustle and enthusiasm."
Lindsay said the energy level of the junior players pushes the older girls, and the older girls, in part, help the younger players with their experience and higher skill level.
"I think it's really going to benefit the grades 9s and 10s down the road playing against that tougher competition," he added. "Of course, for now there are plenty of growing pains."
GFSS opened up Friday against a very good team from Merritt losing 70-18. The Wolves fared a little better against Summerland in their second game 63-40. Katrina Makortoff led GFSS against Summerland with 10 points, while sister Alyssa added six.
In the Wolves final game, they played a familiar foe: the Boundary Central Wildcats from Midway. After losing to BCSS by 35 on Monday, the girls were hoping for a much closer game.
In the early going it certainly looked as if the game would be much closer. GFSS used some strong shooting and tough defence to keep it close in the first quarter. The score after one period was BCSS 10 GFSS 7.
The bigger and more aggressive Wildcats eventually pulled away and led by a 33-15 score at half-time. The final was 76-32 for the girls from the Boundary. Sarah Horan led GFSS with nine points, while Katrina Makortoff added eight.
"We did good - you can really see how we improved from our first game to our last game," said senior guard Nicole Nuyten. "We came together as a team. We still need to work on blocking out and being more aggressive. We definitely shot a lot more and made more shots. We also worked better as a team."
Nuyten said Boundary Central is a good team led by some aggressive grade 12 post players.
"They're definitely more aggressive than we are and more physical than we are," she said.
On Monday, the junior players will get a chance to play against the BCSS junior team at GFSS at 5:30pm.