The Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team beat the Queen’s University Gaels and the York University Lions with a renewed focus on defence.
“I know going into the weekend, we were working a lot more on team defence and I think that really showed in this game,” guard Jaclyn Ronson said after the Ravens’ 71-50 win against York on Jan. 19.
The previous night, the Ravens held on for a 60-52 victory over the Gaels after roaring out to a 20-4 lead after one quarter.
“We got some youth at the important spots, the point guard spots . . . we just kind of shied away a little bit,” Ravens head coach Taffe Charles said. “They got more aggressive.”
“I thought the foul count wasn’t great but we didn’t get through that. It kind of put us in a position where we had to go a little bit deeper,” he added.
The Gaels caused problems for the Ravens down low, with centre Veronika Lavergne collecting 13 points and eight rebounds. The Gaels out-rebounded the Ravens 34-32.
“We are a little bit on the small side, so I think they just tried to lean on us,” Charles said.
However, the Ravens prevailed with clutch shots by guard Cynthia Dupont—who led all scorers with 18 points. The following night, the defence held York to 50 points—which Ronson said was the team’s goal.
This comes after the Ravens focused on improving its defence after their loss to the Laurentian University Voyageurs the week before.
“I think the biggest thing is that our practices haven’t been the best,” Dupont said. “This week was a bit better. I think we really need to start putting pressure on each other and being physical with each other.”
She said the emphasis was on communicating defensively, a trait which has taken time to develop.
“It’s very hard and even us as veterans, it’s still a struggle because it constantly demands energy and support,” Dupont said. “When one person starts doing it a lot, I think people kind of lean towards that and follow.”
The team has changed its defensive focus from before.
“In past practices, we focused a lot on position . . . we were focusing on what the person was guarding [the ball] would do instead of trying to help each other out,” first-year forward Sydney Fearon said. Now, the focus is on stopping penetration through help defence.
The team did three-on-three rotation drills to improve that, according to Ronson.
“It really helps because, in a game, you’ll have five people and you’ll actually have the back end help on the back side,” Ronson said. “But with three-on-three, you’re actually doing even more so it’s almost getting you ahead of the game.”
“If [Charles] sees something wrong, he’ll actually stop and instead of telling us where to go, he actually explains—especially to the rookies that need explanation a bit more and even the veterans sometimes, we get confused,” Dupont said.
“I think he’s really emphasized on not so much rotating but why you’re rotating,” Dupont added. “It’s really helpful for us for sure.”
The rookies also saw increased playing time, which provided veterans with some more rest. Fearon, Deanna Hinds, Emma Huff and Navneet Sandhu all saw minutes off the bench.
“It’s great,” forward Alyssa Cerino said. “We want to get the rookies in. We know what it’s like being a first-year and I was just telling them ‘I love when they score, I love when they get a rebound,’ just trying to encourage them.”
As the team prepares to face the Ryerson University Rams and University of Toronto Varsity Blues on Jan. 25 and 26, Ronson said the team continues to learn from the Laurentian loss.
“It kind of just happened,” Ronson said. “We were doing enough to almost get by and I think we needed this extra push to realize we do need to work as a team like we did tonight and do well and we’ll start getting more wins.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Photo by Tim Austen
