Sol Close Yet Sol Far Away...

By:  Kevkris

Game 8 vs FOR Sol - 11/12/2006

It's a game of inches...

The Sol matchup is always much anticipated and brings out the "crowd" from both sides.  The recent games between the 2 teams have been exciting, tough, competitive games from beginning to end.  This game was no different. 

There was a lot of nervous tension in the air as the game began.  The Tigers jumped out to an early lead behind the excellent play of Shelby, Emiko and Kayla as they broke the Sol press for easy baskets and jumped out to a 6 point lead.  But the Sol adjusted well as they usually do.  They basically called off the full court press and went to a half court trap which caused the girls some trouble.  And with Kylie leading the way the Sol battled back and closed the gap by half.

The 2nd half was basically all Sol.  Their half court trap limited the girl's offensive sets and the girl's shots were challenged.  While the girls gave all they had, they did seem to tire and the Sol took advantage by running the girls. 

It was still a tough game all the way to end with both teams playing tough defense.  The Sol took their first lead of an inbounds play (still don't know how they got the ball in so close to the basket..) with a minute of so to go.  The girls had one last chance to win the game and ran the perfect play with Emiko making a great move to get to the basket in the closing seconds...  But it's a game of inches..  Even though the ball didn't go down, it was a great, fun game.

All the girls gave it their best.  Unfortuantely again, the shots did not fall but give credit to the Sol's defense which is very good and unfortunatley their coach knows our girls strengths/weaknesses way too well now.  But shout out to Shelby, Emiko, Jodi, Kayla, CC, Erica, Lauren, Kristen and Kris for giving it their all.  The girls came so close again.. but the Sol's mental toughness and conditioning won out again..  Final score 20 - 19 nail biter.

Don't know how many more times we'll get to meet up with the Sol.  They seem to want to play up a grade going forward.  Hmmm, I wouldn't mind seeing our girls play up all the time too... : )