The Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team returned from their first road trip of the season to claim a 64-46 victory over the Laurier Golden Hawks on Friday.
Despite the dominant win, head coach Dani Sinclair said she was unhappy with the overall performance.
“We just kind of go with the flow and let the other team dictate things,” Sinclair said after the game, adding the “young” team’s lack of identity has undermined their competitive reputation.
While they’ve only played six games so far, the Ravens were handed a tough 67-62 loss by the Queen’s Gaels on Nov. 7, dashing any hopes for consecutive undefeated regular seasons.
But Carleton bounced back, defeating the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks in a 76-70 nail-biter on Nov. 9 before their matchup against Laurier on home court.
Sinclair said she was focused on “manufacturing some motivation,” ahead of the game, using the tight road scores as fuel.
“In sports, you’ve gotta get angry,” she said. “We seem to be a bit too content at times.”
While the Ravens held a 30-25 lead heading into halftime, the Golden Hawks kept up, with both sides putting up 18 points in the second quarter.
“We’ll have these spurts of energy where we play defence, then we have trouble putting teams away,” Sinclair said. “And then the defence completely goes away.”
Fourth-year guard Kyana-Jade Poulin, who ended with 11 rebounds, agreed that one of the team’s biggest weaknesses is their inconsistent defence.
“I think it’s always about our defence. It’s been a trend for us to play kind of bad in the first half,” Poulin said. “Then in the second half, that’s when we decide to wake up.”
In the third and fourth quarters, the Ravens scored 43 points total — a little more than double the Golden Hawks’ 21 points.
Still, Sinclair said she was disappointed in the team’s shooting, as they made just 1 of 15 three-pointers.
“The girls skipped out on the extra shooting, so there you go. It’s not rocket science. Just get in the gym and get better,” she said.
With many new faces on this year’s roster, Sinclair said she is relying on the experienced players to step up. That includes Poulin, whose nine points were supported by second-year forward Abany Deng and fourth-year forward Jacqueline Urban, who led the Ravens’ offense with 13 and 11 points, respectively.
Deng put up a strong showing on both ends of the court but said she’s still looking to improve her presence on and off the floor to help bridge the gap between veterans and rookies.
“I usually bring energy. That’s what I’m best at,” Deng said. “I’m not really great with words, so my presence alone is what I have to work on for [the first years] to feel comfortable.”
Sinclair said, regardless of the Ravens’ collective talent, there is still plenty to work on.
“There’s a lot of optimism, but that means nothing if you don’t put it into action,” Sinclair said. “That’s gonna have to be a big thing that changes for us to be able to get to where we want.”
Sinclair said that the team is not looking too far ahead into the season, instead focusing on improving one game at a time.
“What we take from this is being able to punch first and come out as intense as we can,” Deng added.
The Ravens will attempt to complete the weekend sweep at home against the Waterloo Warriors on Saturday.
Featured image by Simon McKeown/the Charlatan
