Marauders rebound after shaky start
Emily Braun provided the A.N. Myer Marauders with a shot in the arm at the most opportune time.
With their offence sputtering, the 17-year-old, Grade 12 student found her range from the floor late in the second quarter as the Marauders defeated the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons 47-26 in a quarter-final game Wednesday at the 19th annual Standard Girls Basketball Tournament.
Braun poured in nine of her game-high 17 points in the final minutes of the first half as the Marauders took a 22-15 lead into intermission.
“It was kind of a rough start and all we needed to do was work as a team and look for the open shot and not just take one right away,” said Braun, who plays rep ball for Niagara JUEL. “We started to do that and we started to do our proper offence and it worked for us in the end.”
The defending tournament champions could muster only five points in the opening quarter.
“You have to keep your composure and make sure you don’t get down with every shot you miss,” Braun said.
Myer head coach Dave Shaw was just as impressed with Braun’s defence, which he said directly led to more scoring chances for his squad.
“My first task for Emily is that she’s our defensive stopper,” Shaw said. “I put her on their best player and she did a great job on (Megan) Louws tonight.
“When we compete off our defensive energy, it triggers things. When we get into transition and she can created space and find her seams, that’s all I ask. She has great basketball IQ.”
Shaw is confident the Marauders are moving in the right direction.
“If we can clean up our rebounding, we’ll be a very dangerous team,” he said. “If we give teams three and four chances, we work way too hard on our primary defensive sets to give them easy buckets on put-backs.”
The Gryphons lost in the consolation finals last season and found out they still have some work to do to be considered a legitimate contender on the championship side.
“We need to play in games like this,” GFESS coach Dave Adamyk said. “I’m upset we lost the game, but we needed something like this to knock us down a bit.
“We have work to do. It wasn’t a good day so I’m hoping we get some gym time tomorrow so we can get some of these things worked out.”
STATS PACK
Johnny Rocco’s/Mick and Angelo’s Player of the Game: Myer guard Emily Braun with 17 points.
For the A.N. Myer Marauders: Braun 17; Tori Rigas-DiDomenico 10; Molly Taylor 6; Rosie Tait 5; Vienna 4; Vanessa 3; Brianna Bishop 2.
For the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons: Kaitlyn Gregory 8; Taylor Doyle 8; Emily Patrick 5; Candice Goulding 2; Kailee Barrett 2; Megan Louws 1.
CONSOLATION ROUND
Lynx 43 Mustangs 37
Corrynn Parker netted 30 points to lead the Jean Vanier Lynx past the Saint Michael Mustangs in a consolation round quarter-final game
Also scoring for Jean Vanier were: Isabelle Sinclair 8; Reanna Beaudoin 2; Heather Buller 1; Penny Gomes 1.
Scoring for Saint Michael: Julia Manlow 19; Lauren Carter 7; Aliyah Glaze 6; Jaden Callahan 3; B Steinsehifter 2.
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