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New West girls test their mettle at Top-10 tourney

They ran the gamut and took some hits on the chin. What the New Westminster Hyacks senior girls basketball team gained from the Centennial Top-10 Shootout experience last week isn’t difficult to quantify.
Kaylee Colville
New West’s Kaylee Colville, at left, and Devon Strome cover a Dr. Charles Best player during the final game at the Centennial Top-10 Shootout tournament last week.

They ran the gamut and took some hits on the chin.
What the New Westminster Hyacks senior girls basketball team gained from the Centennial Top-10 Shootout experience last week isn’t difficult to quantify.
If anything, a 1-3 record hides how the Hyacks battled, saw elements of their game exposed, and are ready to refine the game plan as the playoffs get closer.
Culminating with a 60-50 loss to the Dr. Charles Best Blue Devils and a 14th place finish, the Hyacks played well enough to win in two of the losses, but now have a good idea of what they need to address before next month’s playoffs begin.
“It’s just so intense, four games in three days and what you see is how it helped our conditioning,” New Westminster coach Doug Woodward said. “(In the first game) Brookswood just ran it and we struggled to keep up. (Our players) saw we were dying, just not as fit as (Brookswood), even our best players.
“We learned we have to push ourselves, and the girls have been running since.”
That Brookswood opener on Thursday, a 91-39 loss, was never in doubt, despite New West opening with a 6-2 lead against the No. 3-ranked team in B.C.
“I knew it was going to be tough, but we kind of needed it,” said Woodward. “(Brookswood) got on a roll and we stuck to zone and didn’t go man-to-man because we knew we’d be playing another game (later that night)... I’d give us a ‘C’.”
In a strong bounce back, the Hyacks traded the lead against Double-A No. 2 G.W. Graham and had a great shot to pull it out, but fell 77-74 in overtime due to a few missed shots.
“It should have been our game, we played well enough to win but we made too many fouls ... We have to learn how to hold on to a lead.”
In overtime, New West shooters missed three free throws which proved to be a big factor.
Grade 11 floor leader Sarah Forgie tallied 32 points while Milanna Obrovac and Devin Strome counted 13 apiece.
Rested and ready the next day, the squad put in what Woodward called a less than perfect performance but exited with a 35-32 victory over Handsworth. Obrovac earned Player of the Game honours and Forgie netted 14 points in what proved to be something for the Top-10 history books.
“We can say we set a record at the Top-10 – we won a game by the lowest score,” said Woodward. “It was just a terrible game and if my assistant coach (daughter Krista Woodward) was there I would have left.”
That put them in the 13th place game against Best, where they led at half but saw the Coquitlam squad outscore them 21-5 in the third quarter.
Although they got back within a point, Best, which has been among the Triple-A honourable mentioned in B.C. rankings much of the year, pulled away with a 14-5 run.
“That (third quarter) was the game right there. That and missing nine free throws,” he said.
Strome led all New West shooters with 18 points while Forgie contributed 15, finishing the four games with an 18-points-per-game average.
Following the Top-10, they got back into league play with a strong 72-28 win over Burnaby South on Monday, led by Forgie with 29 points. Strome counted 14 points and Tianna Gough chipped in eight.
Woodward said the team will use this week’s Collingwood tournament to work on those areas found lacking at the Top-10, always eyeing the future where a top-three finish at the Lower Mainlands leads to a berth to the B.C.s.
“We’ve got to pick up some fire a bit, because we’re not as fast as we can be,” he noted.