Kodiak women’s basketball off to blazing start

By Lethbridge Herald on October 31, 2023.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge College Kodiaks women’s basketball team are off to a strong start to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference season and are sitting atop of the South Division with a 5-0 record.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a good way to begin the season,” said Ken McMurray, Kodiaks head coach.

“I mean our girls are playing with lots of confidence. I have my five starters, they’re all averaging in double figures, and so, I feel like that’s a pretty (good) balance. And the interesting thing is it seems like every night, it’s been somebody else that’s kind of  stepped up and so I think that makes us pretty tough to stop. And so, yeah I’m excited about that.”

The Kodiaks have been able to hold their opponents to 36 per cent in field goals on the defensive side of the ball.

“So defensively I think we can get better but it’s a great way to start for sure” said McMurray.

McMurray emphasized that he would rely on team depth this season and so far he has gotten that contribution.

“Oh, absolutely,” he said.

“I feel like we can probably go 10 deep at times and there’s been girls that have come off the bench and hit some big shots. Emily Hall’s been shooting great. I mean she’s shooting 69 per cent from three-point range and I don’t want to jinx her on that, but she’s coming in and doing her job. Madison Barfuss is coming in and taking the role of playing either the four or the one  and Montana Berezay is a veteran, and she’s coming in and doing what she’s been ask to do —hitting shots when she needs to and playing good defence.”

McMurray feels the team’s starts have been “pretty good.”

“A lot of times, we’ve jumped out a head of teams in the first five minutes,” said McMurray.

“But I think our real strength has been our third quarter. In our third quarters we’ve like really  played well and yeah it’s kind of been the difference. I think sometimes the score is pretty close at the half, and then at half time we make a few adjustments and the girls buy in and they come out of the gates.”

The strong start scenario is nothing new to McMurray.

“A few years ago, I think we started 9-0,” he said.

“When that happens, you got an X on your back, right. Everybody’s going to bring their best game and play their best and so you have to be ready for that.  You can’t be complacent and I think though there’s lots of satisfaction when you know a team’s going to be up for you and you’re able to battle through that too. So that’s a little bit of a motivation and our girls, they’re not overconfident. They know that they’ve got a lot of work to do and even in the wins so far that we’ve had, I’ve still felt like we’ve haven’t executed offensively like we can. And a lot of our points so far have been in fast break situations and offensive rebounding opportunities which we’ve done a really good job of.”

The Kodiaks will now have two weeks off from  regular season competition.

“So we’re practicing this week and we’re trying to work a lot on individual skill development which you don’t get a lot of time to do ,like when you’re starting a season and it starts so quick for you in the semester,” said McMurray.

The Kodiaks beat St. Mary’s University 98-65 on Friday and 83-65 on Saturday.

They will be back in regular season on Nov. 17-18 when they host Lakeland College and Keyano College respectively at 6 p.m both nights.

In other Kodiak action, the men’s basketball team were defeated 91-76 on Friday and 97-87 on Saturday by St. Mary’s  to drop to 3-2 on the season.

The women’s soccer team dropped the bronze medal 2-1 to Concordia University of Edmonton on Saturday at the ACAC Championship in Edmonton.