Big improvement for a small team

With a small club, the HSMSE Girls Basketball team has been playing less than stellar. A record of 0-4 has haunted the struggling Dragons, they have been improving since their first few games.

Their game on December 9th, 2011 was exceptionally exciting for the girls. They put up a season record for points. With 16 against visiting Institute for Collaborative Education.

Donna Fintzi and Mikaela Bloch led the team with five points each. With the other players contributing six points, the team made major improvements that helped them rack up baskets. "I think it's a great improvement. I see a lot of us trying harder now and being more focused and putting in more energy and taking time to see what's happening," said Leah Cabrera.

They played exceptionally well on defense. Before this game, their opponents averaged 40 points. One visible improvement on defense was the ability to stop their opponents from scoring after turnovers. I.C.E managed to get multiple back to back steals in the first half. The Dragons managed to limit fast break points on the other end.

They struggled on passing, a problem they suffered from game one. "I feel like we just have to get stronger and [get] more accurate passes and that will help to get the game flowing better," said Donna Fintzi. They got over those passing troubles by dominating the paint. The Dragons saw a weakness in I.C.E's defense and started running to the basket. In the second half, they focused on their shooting and that helped later in the game. Another major problem was offensive rebounding. "I think it's the fact that we are undersized, and also that a lot of our players are standing around and watching. I think that is somewhat due to the inexperience. A shot goes off and some people are just kind of watching the person shooting which is typical of high school basketball," said coach Diunte.

Hoping that they can pull off a win, Head Coach Diunte said the team needs to practice on passing. "I feel that next practice we are probably going to take a step back and focus on like the mechanics of the pass a little bit more and then add passing under pressure a bit. So I think those things will help us play better if we can you know pass correctly and then also on the same time be able to pass under some pressure."