The Abbotsford News's high school sports blog, Students of the Game, features local athletes sharing their experiences and unique perspectives. Today, MEI senior Tessa Ratzlaff discusses some big victories for her Eagles basketball team and looks ahead to a huge league game vs. Mouat.
These past few weeks have been busy with lots of great basketball. After defeating Mouat 58-56 in the Abby Police City tournament on Dec. 14, we continued to practice over Christmas break. Beating Mouat and coming first in Abbotsford was definitely a great feeling.
To start 2014 the MEI senior girls basketball team hosted a home tournament on Jan. 10-11. With only winning one out of three games over the weekend, no one on the team was satisfied with how we finished. During our second game against Riverside, one of our main point guards when down with a knee injury, and she hasn’t been able to come back yet. However, we kept determined attitudes as we entered the Top Ten Shootout tournament at Centennial Secondary this last weekend.
On Thursday, Jan. 16, we started off with a strong 72-42 win against Fleetwood, which led us to playing No. 2-ranked Oak Bay the next morning. We came out with positive attitudes, and played one of the best games as a team. We ended with a winning score of 71-38, which was a huge win for our team. That evening we went on to the semifinals to play Riverside, who we had just lost to the previous weekend.
We had a poor start to the game, and in the second quarter Riverside was leading by 19 points. Of course we didn’t give up, and slowly made our way back in the third quarter. We finished with an amazing defensive team effort, and defeated them 72-60. Coach Rick Thiessen, who recently celebrated his 20th year of coaching basketball at MEI, said “It was one of my most memorable days as a coach”. With full excitement we headed to the finals to play No. 1-ranked Brookswood.
Let me tell you, they are a very talented team, and have some amazing players. We ended with quite the loss, which was very frustrating. However, we still will always have the yearning to beat Brookswood. I think we are just saving that win for provincials! Overall it was an amazing weekend for our team, and I saw so much improvement over one weekend.
Coach Thiessen says that we haven’t met our full potential yet, which I totally agree on. We still have so much to work on, which means we will continue to battle hard as a team.
This Thursday, Jan. 23, we play our big rival Moaut again in their home gym. It will be competitive, intense, and one great game. If we play hard as a team defensively, and offensively, then I definitely believe we can pull out the big win. I am hoping it will be a fun game, and I am sure the fans and the refs will also have a great time.
Previous Students of the Game blog entries
Tessa Ratzlaff: Bragging rights on the line at city basketball tourney
Tanner Friesen: Coming to terms with a season-ending defeat
Callum Pilgrim: Hawks hoopsters finding their game