Daily Sitka Sentinel

MEHS Girls Look to Better Shooting

By ABIGAIL BLISS
Sentinel Staff Writer
    The Mt. Edgecumbe High School girls basketball team, newly reconfigured after the removal of four starting players from the roster, displayed glimpses of its potential at the Homer Winter Carnival tournament this past weekend. The Braves started off strong with a win over Dillingham before falling to Kotzebue and Homer.
    “I tell them, ‘It can only get better,’” said head coach Kathy Forrester. “My goal is that they peak at the right time, since we kind of started midseason as a complete team.”
    In their first game against Dillingham on Thursday, the Braves were up 12-1 by the end of the first quarter. From there, they widened their lead to a final score of 52-10 with junior Sasha Saccheus racking up 11 points in the process.
    Dillingham is a 2A team, Forrester explained, and struggled to keep up with the Braves. She took the opportunity to give second string players significant playing time, and, as a result, nine out of the ten kids on the MEHS roster scored baskets.
    Friday was a different story as the Braves lost to Kotzebue 38-34.
    The two teams maintained relative parity throughout the game, but MEHS repeatedly failed to finish on offense and came up short of catching Kotzebue. The Braves made 9 out of 50 shots from the field, amounting to a shooting percentage of just 18 percent.
    “We don’t normally shoot that way,” Forrester said. “We missed a lot of layups. It was a frustrating one.”
    The Braves did, however, exhibit hustle and strength on defense, in large part due to contributions from junior Brystel Charlie,
    “I would say Brystel Charlie puts 120 percent into every game she plays,” Forrester commented.
    In their final game of the Homer tournament, the Braves faced the host team, and again struggled on offense. Freshmen Autumn Beans and Tessa Coopchiak managed to score 9 points apiece, but the Braves ultimately lost 32-27.
    Reflecting on the last two games of the tournament, Forrester characterized the Braves’ sub-optimal shooting as “really frustrating” for the girls.
    “They feel like these are shots that should have been finished,” she said. “They’re getting along really well together ... We just need to make shots.”
    Despite its disappointing end, the Homer tournament did give the Braves some reason to celebrate: Edgecumbe’s Danielle Go won the tournament’s free-throw competition, and Saccheus and Coopchiak were named to the all-tournament team.
    Forrester expressed hope that the Braves will exhibit sharper shooting in the Lady Grizzly Hardwood Classic at Grace Christian High School this coming weekend. The team will leave for Anchorage on Wednesday.