Emmanuelle Dugas
The Merritt Secondary School junior girls basketball team were unbeatable on the weekend in a one-day tournament held at the MSS gymnasium.
The Lady Panthers played tenacious defence, and produced enough timely offence to roll over a pair of opposing hoops squads from the Okanagan.
In their first outing against the Rutland Voodoos, the MSS girls never trailed, leading by eight points at the half en route to a solid 39-32 victory.
Leading scorers for Merritt were guard Mesha Naiker with 10 points and forward Logan Moorhead with nine. Emmanuelle Dugas and Haley Zabek chipped in with six points apiece.
In their second outing, Naiker and Moorhead again led the scoring parade with 14 points each, as the Panthers downed the Okanagan-Mission Huskies 39-34. Jamie O’Neill added another six points.
“We must have scored a dozen points off lay-ups.”
—Head coach Dick Wowchuk
“In the second game, we finally got our offence rolling,” head coach Dick Wowchuk said. “We must have scored a dozen points off lay-ups.”
The MSS junior boys squad was also scheduled to play a pair of games on Saturday against the Princess Margaret Mustangs from Penticton but the visitors were a no-show.
Returning to girls’ play, Naiker and Moorhead had little time to savour their team’s weekend wins as the two suited up for a short-staffed MSS senior girls team that played the visiting Valleyview Vikes on Monday.
The home team kept the score close for 20 minutes, trailing only 20-11 at the half, but simply couldn’t keep pace with their well-conditioned opponents down the stretch. The final score was 71-21 in Valleyview’s favour.
Leading Panther scorers on Monday night were Moorhead (five points) and Gabrielle Zabek (four).
The Merritt junior boys and senior girls teams will both be travelling to Princeton this coming weekend for a tournament.
