Girls' Basketball Beats Governor’s Academy by Double Digits

The Big Red girls’ varsity basketball team defeated Governor Academy’s squad 68-56, improving to 9-4 on the season and 4-1 since the turn of the year.

“I think we’ve been playing as a team and shooting a lot better as a whole,” senior Courtney Henrich said.

“We’ve been working a lot on our defense too and it's come a long way in a short period of time,” senior Casey Osborne agreed. She added that they’ve “been working incredibly hard to improve and perfect our 2-3 defense and that has definitely paid off.”

“I think we've been playing as a team and shooting a lot better as a whole.”

Against Governor’s, Exeter strayed away from their go-to 2-3 zone defense and switched to a

typical man-to-man defense. “We tried to psych them out because we knew they had prepared for our 2-3 and we wanted to throw them off,” Osborne said. “Our man-to-man defense worked really well to shut down the shooters on Governor’s.”

The man-to-man defense helps in denying the ball from good shooters, and forces guards to drive and penetrate the paint. Henrich added, “Coming out in man to man defense instead of our usual zone was different and something we don’t practice a lot but we handled the change well and played a good defensive first half. We’ve been working a lot on our defense too and it's come a long way in a short period of time.”

The team had a big lift from their domination in the paint. “Erika drove to the hoop a lot and that was great,” Osborne said. Upper Peace Kabari was a force on the glass as usual and added a few steals as well. “We passed the ball well and played very unselfishly,” Henrich said. “I think we've been playing as a team and shooting a lot better as a whole.” Henrich, Exeter’s newest 1,000 point scorer, was the offensive leader as usual.

Since going into break with a respectable 5-3 record, the team has found its stride and has not looked back, going 4-1 since returning.

“I think we’ve been doing really well the past couple of games and we just have to work on being more consistent with playing our best,” lower Bella Edo said. Despite the last five games, there is still work to be done in order to accomplish their goal of defending their championship.

“I think shot selection is something we need to work on. We have really good shooters but we need to make sure that the shots we're taking are smart,” Osborne said.

Big Red travels to Worcester Academy this Saturday, and will have their work cut out for them against a talented Hilltoppers squad.