Joey Payeur
By Joey Payeur
Staff writer
jpayeur@fortfrances.com
All four Muskie court teams now know they can take the morning off when it comes to the NorWOSSA playoffs.
The squads ran their records to 6-0—and each clinched first place in the league standings—after sweeping the host Dryden Eagles on Tuesday.
That means all four teams have byes to their respective finals during the NorWOSSA playoffs set for Nov. 13 at Fort High.
The Muskie junior girls’ basketball team got some important extra minutes for their bench players but still kept the game under control in a 40-27 victory over Dryden (3-3).
They led 14-1 after the first quarter and increased it to 18-1 in the second before bringing on their army of non-starters.
“At that point, I decided to go with some of our younger, less-experienced players until halftime,” noted Muskie coach Gord McCabe.
“And while they didn’t play badly, they were very unlucky around the basket and did make some mistakes on defence that gave Dryden some wide-open shots.
“I wanted them to get the experience of working through the adversity, so I left them in and Dryden scored 14-straight points to cut it to 18-15 at halftime,” he added.
“We pressured with our starting five to start the second half and four minutes in, the score was 32-15,” McCabe recalled.
“We rotated everybody in after that with a mix of veterans and rookies, and kind of coasted home.
“Except for the stretch in the second quarter, I saw really good play from some of our rookies, notably Alina Eldridge, Andrea Schram, and Sarah Larson,” he lauded.
Bryanna Dustin led the way with 11 points while Carmen Godin and Ellie Petsnick had six each.
Yesterday, the juniors routed the visiting Atikokan Voyageurs 50-21 in an exhibition game.
Meanwhile, the Muskie
senior girls’ basketball team extended their NorWOSSA winning streak to 26-straight games with a 42-18 romp over the Eagles (3-3).
Top scorers were unavailable at press time.
In boys’ volleyball Tuesday in Dryden, the senior Muskies were pushed harder than they had been all season by Dryden (2-4) before finally prevailing 3-2.
The set scores were 17-25, 25-17, 17-25, 25-18, and 15-11.
The junior boys, meanwhile, notched a 3-1 victory (25-22, 20-25, 25-14, and 25-9) over the Eagles (1-5).
All four Muskie teams hosted the Kenora Broncos today.
Then they’ll close out the regular season next Thursday here against the Eagles.
