The women’s basketball team opened its 2008-09 season Friday with a trip down the road to visit the Royal Military College Paladins, a team that hasn’t won a game since entering OUA competition in 2003. Despite the Gaels’ 68-53 victory, it wasn’t quite as comfortable a win as they predicted.
The Paladins came out strong, outscoring the Gaels 21-20 in the first quarter. Queen’s regained control of the game in the second quarter and headed into the locker room with a 45-33 half-time lead. The second half mirrored the first. In the third quarter, the Paladins scored 14 points and limited the Gaels to eight, but Queen’s bounced back in the final quarter and scored 15 points to secure the win.
Despite RMC’s history, Queen’s head coach Dave Wilson said he wasn’t surprised at the way the game played out.
“It was what I expected,” he said. “It was a bit of a struggle.” Wilson attributed that struggle to both the rebuilding stage his program is in and the improvement of the RMC team.
“We lost three players over the summer that all should have been playing for us this fall, so we’re a little younger than we were expecting to be,” he said. “We don’t have the experience around that we’re used to having.” Wilson pointed out the RMC team has also gotten significantly better.
“There’s no question that RMC’s more talented,” he said. “They’ve done a good job in off-season recruiting. [The team] has added maturity and experience to their lineup.”
One highlight for the Gaels was the play of second-year guard and last year’s OUA East rookie of the year Brittany Moore, who scored 25 points and was the game’s top scorer.
Wilson attributed her success to both her talent and her work ethic.
“She’s probably the most talented three-point shooter I’ve had the opportunity to coach,” he said. “She stayed with us all summer and worked on her game, playing twice a day. She does everything she can to make herself better and everyone around her better.” Given the squad’s lack of veterans, Moore said he feels the Gaels’ success this season hinges on their ability to work as a team.
“We’re really going to have to work well together,” she said. “We need to communicate and talk our way through everything.”
She said she expects this weekend’s home games against Waterloo and Laurier to be challenging.
“Every game this year is going to be tough,” she said. “We’re not going to kill any team.”
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.
