The Memorial women's basketball team will travel to Ontario this weekend, October 4th-6th to take on multiple teams in exhibition games to prepare for the upcoming season. This trip comes after the Sea-Hawks travelled to Corner Brook and played two close games against the Saint Mary's Huskies; splitting the exhibition series.
The Sea-Hawks go into the season with seniors Haille Nickerson and Jane Baird leading the way for them. The team is comprised of 15 players, with 8 of them being in their first or second season, making them a very young team that is hungry to compete.
When asked about his biggest takeaways from the team's trip to Corner Brook, Head Coach Mark English had this to say "We saw a lot of positives in Corner Brook. We were able to give a ton of opportunity to young players and see what they can do."
English highlighted the emphasis on the team giving the young core experience against good basketball programs, which is one of the main reasons why the team is traveling to Ontario to play against some tough competition. The Hawks matchup against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, the York Lions and the Guelph Gryphons throughout the weekend.
The Hawks have 8 exhibition games in total this pre-season, opposed to the regular slate of 6 games. Having 2 extra games to prepare for the season is huge for the young Hawks to develop and prepare for the season, as was previously stated by English.
"We have a great leadership core in place with our senior players right now. We are looking one day at a time and focusing on being better than yesterday."
English added that they have a great core of leaders in Nickerson and Baird, two very capable guards that can certainly lead the team to success this season.
Looking at the matchups for this weekend, the toughest will arguably be the York Lions or the Guelph Gryphons, who finished with 10-13 and 9-15 records respectively. They both were competitive teams in the talented OUA last season, with Guelph making the post season in the West and York almost making it to the playoffs in the East. U of T finished with a record of 6-17 in the East, but they will still prove to be a tough opponent for Memorial because of the talented league that they play in.
The Sea-Hawks play U of T on Friday at 9:30PM NST, York on Saturday at 3:30PM NST and Guelph on Sunday at 2:30PM NST in Ontario. You can keep up with the games on Twitter and the live scoring at www.goseahawks.ca.
Written by: Darnell Downs