Hesquiaht Storm has been knocked out of the 2014 BC Junior All Native Basketball Tournament.
The Storm lost 49-42 to Haisla in a semi-final game on Thursday afternoon and has placed fourth in the tournament.
“We could have advanced to the finals if we did a few things differently,” said head coach Geno John. “We came out too flat and just didn’t get it going in this one.”
Storm beat At’Maakw 67-56 earlier in the day before meeting Haisla in their second game of the day. Storm’s game play going in was to run, push the ball and play consistently hard. Instead, they came out flat and couldn’t initially shift gears into a faster pace.
Haisla established its game early with post Megan Metz driving to the net, scoring points or drawing fouls and converting the foul shots. Haisla was up 12-9 after one quarter.
John had Storm play a zone defense. Haisla exploited the holes in that plan to score points. “The girls weren’t switching on Haisla’s screens fast enough so I switched from man-to-man to zone,” John said. “The girls couldn’t sort it out though and it never slowed Haisla down.”
Fouls were costly, especially at key times during the game or when Storm was close.
“The fouls were costly because they made their shots at the line,” John said.
Led by Amber John and Kylee Sam, Storm fought back, bringing the team within two points at 27-25, and also in the third when it was 38-35, but it wasn’t enough.
“We went point for point with them and got close but we just couldn’t pull it out,” John said. “It was hard knowing we were getting so close.”
