HMC Sr. Girls Basketball Tip-Off Tournament

Girls Make it to the Finals but come up short
(By: Parent supporter, Gary Jung, edited by player Melissa Jung)

The HMC Sr. Girls basketball squad participated in the Tip-Off Tournament, held at Thomas Street Middle School on Jan 13, 2006.

In the first game of the day, the HMC girls were firing on all cylinders and dominated Ruth Thompson MS by a lop-sided 25-1 score.

The second game proved to be more challenging, versus Dolphin Sr. P.S. The squad was missing two regular players, but they came out strong in the first half, pushing to a 8-3 lead. HMC continued to dominate in the second half and built the lead up to 14-8. The Dolphin squad then roared back late in the second half to make the game close. However, HMC were able to hold off the attack and won by a final score of 16-12, thus placing first among the 6 teams in the round robin play, with an impressive +28 points differential over two games (next best team was Thomas Street MS with +4).

In the semi-final game, the girls were missing yet another player, and came up against a very aggressive and hardworking team from Homelands Sr. P.S. The game featured very tight defence, and the result was a mere 3-1 half-time score in favour of HMC. However, playing their third match of the day, and being reduced by 3 of their more experienced players, the effects slowly began to show. The squad struggled in the second half and Homelands forged ahead to a 12-3 lead. The strong Homelands defence was frustrating the HMC players, but the coaches called a timeout and 'new' plays were devised on the spot, and the squad responded with 6 straight points to narrow the lead to 12-9, with just over a minute to play. However, the deficit had become too big to overcome, and Homelands ran out the remaining time and defeated HMC 14-9.

Homelands would advance to the championship match and eventually win the tournament.

Overall, with a full squad, the HMC Sr. Girls showed that they could display bursts of explosiveness. Their effort during this pre-season kick-off tournament was a time for them to bond as a team, and to learn their strengths and weaknesses as a team. The positive effects of this tourney should give the girls a solid foundation for the coming season.