Women’s Basketball “Dances With Wolves”
Posted on: Oct 19, 2015
This weekend the Thunder Women’s Basketball team opened their 2015-16 season hosting a pair of games with Grande Prairie Regional College. “We're excited to start the season. It's been a long pre-season and the girls have been working hard,” opened Head Coach Robbie Valpreda. In the season opener on Saturday night, the Thunder got out to an excellent start leading after one quarter 20-10. As the second quarter began, the Wolves came to life and pushed back, taking the lead 31-28. However, a Thunder run to finish the first half – led by Nakita Newman – had the Thunder back on top 34-31 at halftime. In the second half, the Thunder were led by 3rd year Guard Lindsay Piper. “Lindsay was great tonight. She stepped up huge for us and led this team. She gave an emotion-filled performance and worked extremely hard on the floor.” The Thunder jumped out to a 53-43 lead going into the last quarter. As the fourth quarter wound down, it was 58-58 with 23 seconds left but an unfortunate turnover cost the Thunder the last possession of the game and the Wolves walked away with a 62-58 victory. “We were the better team tonight but they rebounded the ball at crucial times and we didn’t box-out, which hurt us in the end. Our free throw shooting needs to be better in tight games; we lost by 4 and missed 12 lay-ups in the second half.” The Thunder got the first game jitters out of the way and were then focused on game two. Congratulations to Player of the Game Lindsay Piper.
The second game for the Thunder was a very rare Sunday afternoon affair with the tip off going at 1 PM. “We knew going into this game that we had to be better at two things; finishing at the rim and better free throw shooting on offense and on the defensive end, we had to be better at the rebounding game.” In the first frame, the Thunder once again jumped out to an early 14-7 lead. But the Wolves went on an 8-0 run to finish the first quarter up 16-14. “Being so early in the season, we will figure the little things out," vowed Valpreda. We're still adjusting, especially our first year players." The end result of the contest was a 60-50 win for the Wolves. “This was an unfortunate way to start our season. We have to learn to play for all 40 minutes." The Thunder were led on Sunday by Player of the Game Nakita Newman with 15 points.
The Thunder now take on the powerhouse Lakeland College Rustlers on Friday night @ 6 PM at the Ralph King.
