Girls basketball shoots to defeat conference rival

Jake Elchert, Sports team|January 28, 2016

The girls basketball team huddles in pre-game and prepares for the game.

Coming off a long week of practice after a big win last week, Homestead’s varsity girls basketball team has another huge conference game on Fri. Jan. 29 against a tough Grafton team that has two losses in conference so far this season.

With the whole week off of games until this Friday, the team has had a lot of preparation and time to think about Grafton and what they do as a team to be successful.

“We practiced so hard all week preparing for the big game. I think we played so well as a team against Cedarburg and it really brought the energy up for the rest of the season,” Taylor Mcllwraith, senior, said.

Mary Kate Simon, senior, agreed with Mcllwraith. “We have been watching film all week during lunch. We had scout team come twice this week to run Grafton’s offense and defense,” she said.

Although the team has had many big wins this season and feels like it has been having a great season so far, there are always things to work on and improve. “We have to work a lot on our defense and full court press but we have been making lots of improvement this week in practice,” Mcllwraith said.

“We have been talking about how we need to work together as once and how this game is paramount if we want to be conference champs,” Simon added.

“The team has to continue to work hard in every practice. We also have to work well together on the court. We have a lot of talent that we need to use to work together,” Chloe Marotta, sophomore, said.

The team is very excited for this game and cannot wait to get out on the court. The players feel like with a win would give them a lot of momentum for the rest of the season. “A win Friday would make us one step closer to winning conference and would also give us a lot of momentum going into games in the future,” Mcllwraith said.

“A win against Grafton would be huge. We are looking to win the conference and Grafton is just another team in our way,” Marotta said.

“Our goal for the season is to be conference champs and it makes every game really tough because everyone wants to beat us. This win would mean a lot and I think it would set a new tone for the season. Our last game against Grafton was very bad and we have grown so much as a team and I know we can beat them if we stick to how we played against Cedarburg: hard work and as one,” Simon said.