Court teams take three from Kenora

A return to the friendly confines of Fort High proved to be the catalyst for the best day of the NorWOSSA season to date as the Muskie court teams earned three victories over the Kenora Broncos yesterday afternoon.
After losing their last two league matches, the senior boys’ volleyball team returned to its winning ways with a three-set sweep of the Broncos (26-24, 25-17, and 25-19) to improve to 2-2.

“I’m very happy with how things went,” head coach Allison Hyatt enthused.
“We played strong for the majority of the match and we played the volleyball that we can play, as opposed to what happened to us the last time we played Kenora,” she noted.
The junior boys also moved back to .500 with a four-set win (25-13, 25-15, 20-25, and 25-16) over the Broncos, marking the second-straight time they’ve beaten their league rivals.
“The play from the guys in the sets that we won was very good,” said coach John Gibson.
“In the third set, we did get behind for a long stretch and we had a tough finish, with some mental lapses that we had being the difference there,” he conceded.
“So that is something we will continue to work on with the guys.”
In girls’ basketball action, meanwhile, the junior Muskies took part in the wildest game of the day—rallying for a 39-36 victory over Kenora.
After giving up eight points late in the third quarter to trail 31-23, the black-and-gold went on an eight point-run of their own early in the fourth to tie things back up.
A pair of clutch baskets by Hannah McLeod then put the hosts back in front for good.
“We talked to the girls after the third quarter and tried to settle them down a bit,” noted co-coach Mike Krueger.
“We tried to put some of our key players in there that we know can make things happen for us, and they were able to find some holes and work the ball around.
“Our defence helped us out, as well, as we put the press on and created a number of turnovers,” he added.
Cassandra Moffitt netted 14 points to the lead the black-and-gold, who now sport a 3-1 mark on the season.
As for the senior hoopsters, they fell to 0-4 after a 35-19 loss at the hands of the Broncos yesterday.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Kenora,” stressed Muskie coach Dan Bird.
“Fundamentally, they are way ahead of us and Dryden right now as their passing is crisp and they play a defence where we fall into their traps,” he explained.
“We just have to work on our fundamentals as when we ran our offence today, you could see that it works.”
Sarah Bagacki and Adriane Gurski were the top scorers for the Muskies with four-point outings.
The Muskies will resume their NorWOSSA schedule next Thursday (Oct. 18) at noon when the Dryden Eagles come to town for the second time this season.
Prior to that, however, two of the Muskie squads will be in action this weekend, with the junior girls hosting a eight-team tournament.
The black-and-gold will kick-off the event tomorrow at noon against the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora).
Meanwhile, the senior boys will head to Dryden tomorrow for their second tournament of the season.
Their first game in the ‘Gold’ pool goes at 1 p.m., when they’ll take on the Hammarskjold Vikings (Thunder Bay).