The high school girls summer basketball team started out with an average performance and ended with a win during a tournament at North Bend over the weekend.
Eleven girls traveled to the tournament, including only one senior, Annie Whitfield, who missed much of the last season due to an injury.
Friday, the team was average, said Coach Robby Robinson. “We had a really great team bonding session that night.”
The next day, things started changing for the better, he said. The girls went up against Marshfield, the 2009 champion in 5A. The Huskies were down about 30 at one point, and they cut the lead to five near the end of the game, finally losing 57-50.
That triggered two days of good game play, Robinson said. On Sunday they fell 58-52 to Ashland, state champions in 2008 5A.
“We’re starting to score points,” Robinson said. Later Sunday, the Huskies defeated Siuslaw 54-44 to finish the tournament.
The team averaged 28.2 points per game last season.
“We just started becoming really competitive,” Robinson said. Whitfield averaged 19 points per game to lead the Huskies, while Harley Brendle led at the board with nine rebounds per game.
The team was largely last year’s junior varsity two team with the exception of Whitfield and Sabrina Davis, who played well too, Robinson said. The team included nine players, with three freshmen, six sophomores, two juniors and one senior.
“Everything that needed to happen happened,” Robinson said. “In order to get a turnaround, you have to have small steps of improvement. We’re on schedule.”