The Mission’s girls playoff basketball game on Feb. 15 showed a difference in teams and not just division. The Mission girls team is in division 2 which is a lower division than Lowell, a division 1 team.
The two divisions played each other in the playoffs because the highest ranked division 1 team played the highest ranked division 2 team. This means the Mission team was the underdog.
During the pregame, I noticed the skill difference and player depth difference between both teams. The Mission girls team was pretty short-handed compared to Lowell’s girls team as Lowell filled up their bench. Meanwhile Mission had two players on the bench, so it was a 7 vs 15 match up. This meant Mission would have a hard time playing without any subs for breaks during the game.
As the game started, it took both teams a while to score the first points of the game. Both teams were playing strong defense on each team, but Lowell’s girls came prepared. They clearly had more practice than Mission and ended up getting the first bucket of the game. The day before the game, Mission was missing some girls from practice.
Also, there were only two seniors on the Mission team and the underclassmen let their nerves get to them. The younger players looked to count on Team Captain, senior, Zara Pratt, who was playing with a hand injury.
The team connection seemed off. They didn’t appear to be as mentally prepared and the fact that Mission was playing against a way more disciplined, and not just skillfully better team, didn’t help.
The second half of the basketball game went downhill for Mission. Lowell ended up leading by 20+ points. By the end of the game Mission’s girls fell short by 30 with the final score: Lowell 61- Mission 31.
“I needed more help,” Zara Pratt said. She could not do everything by herself, especially with her injury.
Zara’s fans were in the stands cheering the team on to keep fighting to stay in the game.
Junior shooting guard Sydelle Laudenorio feels they could’ve done better but she also feels she gave it her all that game too. And she’s glad her team made it to the playoffs.
“Lowell was just the better team overall because they’re a bigger team who communicated more. They were more sophisticated,” Sydelle said.
Sydelle wished her teammates made more of an effort to come to practice. She believes practice allows time to build more chemistry in addition to better skills.
Sydelle sees herself as a player for next year. She wants to have a bigger team since they will be back in division 1. She will focus on recruiting players for the team.
One of Sydelle’s highlights from this season is hitting the school record and career high with a whopping 31 points.
She has come a long way this year. In the beginning of the season she thought she was gonna have to play soccer since there weren’t enough players to start a team.
“I don’t even play soccer,” she said.
“I’m happy I got this far and had the chance to play with both Zara and Kaelynn, the two seniors on the team.
