Head Coach: Michael Gibson
Manager: Rebekah Banks, Ashley Allen

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Overall Record:  7 - 7       

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February 12, 2008
Cary Academy                   16
NRCA                                    14

Cary Academy won the opening game of the Triangle Middle School Conference tonight by a close margin over a determined team from North Raleigh Christian Academy. The old adage that it’s tough to defeat a team three times in a season held true as the Knights had us down on the ropes, but fortunately we did not fold. In what was a very close game, we played a tight first half which saw us shoot 3/17 from the field and 2/10 from the line. Yikes, but fortunately for us, NRCA was unable to capitalize as we did a good job defensively and really dominated the boards and was able to go in at the half up 8 – 7. A strong defensive effort in the third quarter in which we held them scoreless, but only managed to score 4 points gave us a little breathing space at the end of the third quarter. The fourth quarter however saw NRCA outscore us and take a lead with 1:20 left 14 -12. At this point, we did not panic and our relentless crashing of the offensive glass paid off, as we got numerous second shot opportunities and fouls. Although we only shot 2/8 from the line in the 4^th quarter, making two free throws proved to be the margin of victory as we won in the final minute of the game.

Although we have beaten NRCA twice and more easily, as I explained to the girls, it’s a whole new ballgame and atmosphere in the playoffs and what you did in the season does not make a difference in the post-season. We won this game on determination, aggressiveness, and rebounding, which allowed us to overcome shooting 4/22 from the line and still win. Better shooting combined with the same level of effort is what we hope to carry with us Friday when we face the #1 seed St. David’s for the opportunity to play in the championship game Saturday.

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February 7, 2008
Cary Christian                                    26
Cary Academy                                    16

These enrichment games are exciting and tough to coach. Exciting as a gym full screaming kids, pumped up to support your team is a nice change of pace from our typical home games. Tough since our players are also pumped up and in some cases even more worried about making mistakes and looking bad in front of their peers and teachers. In this situation, one needs to make a greater effort to tune out the crowd and focus on playing together as a team. That was lacking today and Cary Christian took advantage of our individual-oriented play. Every mistake we made, not playing with our feet on defense, not helping and recovering, seeing and playing the ball and not being locked into our player, not squaring up and facing the basket on offense, not aggressively using our dribble, was magnified and allowed the Knights to outscore us 9 – 0 in the first quarter.

We did a better job the next three quarters, but given that we lost by 10 points, the hole that our poor first quarter placed us in proved to be insurmountable. Two numbers tell the story of this game, 24 (turnovers) and 2 (assists). We spent a great deal of time after the game breaking down these two statistics, and how it impacts us as a basketball team. We have to play smarter, more aggressively, and most important, TOGETHER.

Tomorrow is the last regular season game and we host Ravenscroft, who really took it to us a couple of weeks ago at their place. It would go a long way toward building our confidence for next week’s conference tournament if we strove to play smarter, more aggressively, and TOGETHER. Although it was not always apparent versus Cary Christian, this team has grown and come a long way from the start of the season and we will show how far we come as we attempt to even the score against Ravenscroft.

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February 5, 2008
Cary Academy                        20
NRCA                                      14

Cary Academy swept the season series against the Knights with a 20 -14 away win yesterday. We were a little short-handed as the flu bug going around the school has finally hit the team. The positive is that it opened up some playing time for the remaining players. Our starting lineup of Emily Aarons, Tyler Powell, Sydney Branson, Abbi Eder, and Reagan Atkins established that we were the better team immediately. The combination of executing our offense, running the floor in transition, and strong defense that capitalized on turnovers allowed us to jump out into an early lead. We scored the first basket and never trailed. The only phase of our game that we were ineffective at was setting up and executing our full-court press after made shots, their point guard was too quick and we were not able to set up traps on her.

The first quarter found us ahead 12 – 0,and we got the score to 14 -0 before NRCA scored their first points. Abbi Eder again led the charge with 6 first quarter points and a dominant effort on the boards. She ultimately finished the game with 10 points to lead the team in scoring. Tyler Powell had a strong first quarter also scoring 2 points and adding 2 rebounds and a steal. Tyler has finally gotten accustomed to game conditions as the two consecutive starts have given her a good amount of playing time and she has positioned herself to be a big contributor to our team in the upcoming tournament. Sydney Branson contributed 2 points and 2 rebounds, on her way to 6 rebounds for the game. Bailey Plymyer also scored 2 points in the quarter as she came in from the bench during the latter part of the quarter.

The remainder of the first half was actually slight advantage NRCA, as we played poor position defense. We start to lose intensity and get lazy in our stance and are susceptible to not moving our feet and accumulating reaching fouls. We had 12 team fouls the first half, and sent NRCA to the free throw line 13 times. Four of their six first half points were scored from the free throw line.

The third and fourth quarters were nearly dead even as their was not a good deal of offense the second half. NRCA outscored us 8 – 6 in the second half, but they did not have enough firepower to overcome our initial early lead. We did a better job defensively the second half on their point guard, as Carrie Hartsfield and Emily Aarons alternated in guarding her. The priority was to stop her penetration, deny her when we could and force someone else to handle the ball and generate offense, and play the ball screens set for her well. We did all of the three, especially calling out and playing the ball screens. We will see other teams employ ball screens and it’s gratifying to see something we have worked on in practice come together in a game. Our major negative for the game was poor free throw shooting 0-10 for the game. We also had difficulty getting offense from our substitutes tonight, but we were without a player who is a good ball handler which made it difficult for this unit to generate any offense. Again, we were effective moving the ball in our zone offense today, and NRCA did not employ any full court pressure, although they did periodically double team us when we got the ball over half court, which we were able to handle.

I suspect that we will host NRCA next week in our first TMSC tournament game, and although we played well enough to win today, we will have to up our level a notch when we face them next week. We host Cary Christian tomorrow and Ravenscroft Friday to finish our regular season. Thanks for your continued support and see you tomorrow.

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January 31, 2008
Cary Academy                             39
East Wake Academy                    28

The CA girls team bounced back from a disappointing overtime loss last game with a resounding 39 – 28 win over East Wake Academy. I was concerned about how we would play, we had beaten EWA handily earlier and I did not want them to feel like they could just show up and win. Additionally, we were missing a number of our key players so the table was set for a possible tight game or even upset if we had a letdown.

My concerns were quickly put to rest as our starters jumped out to a 10-0 lead on the strength of pressure defense, effective pressing, and offensive rebounding. Abbi Eder led the way in the first quarter as she  8 points while shooting 2/5 from the line as she was fouled on putting back the offensive rebound. Reagan Atkins added a basket and Tyler Powell scored 3 points in the quarter in her first real extended action this season. We led after the first quarter 13 – 3. To the girls credit, they continued to build on the lead, outscoring EWA 11 -1 in the second quarter. At this point we had a lot of momentum and I was able to substitute liberally, and give many of our players a lot of extended action with no let-up in the intensity. Five different girls scored in the second quarter as forced turnovers and ran the floor, getting numerous fast break layups as we took advantage of EWA’s lack of floor balance and transition defense. The main difference was we were able to control the defensive board and quickly outlet the ball out of the middle of the floor to the sides. Our guards did a great job of getting to the correct spots on the outlet and we were able to significantly decrease a lot of turnovers that are caused when we try to advance the ball in the main traffic artery in the middle third of the floor.

The highlight of the second quarter and the game was Caroline Woronoff’s Sports Center’esque 180-degree turn-around swish jumper on a fast break. The negative of the second quarter was although we held EWA to one point, they scored their point on 1/7 free throw shooting. We had by now taken off the press and dropped back into half-court man-to-man and a 1-3-1, but we were doing a poor job of not moving our feet and accumulating a lot of fouls by reaching.

EWA started the third quarter with a 5-0 run that had us flat on our heels. I called time-out and emphasized to the girls the importance of the first three minutes of the second half and not wanting to look up at the scoreboard and seeing us stuck  on 24 points, as we have tended to have long droughts due to a drop in defensive intensity. To their credit the girls regrouped and we finished the rest of the third quarter 13 -0 to take a comfortable 37 – 9 lead into the fourth quarter. EWA did an excellent job pressing us and although I was disappointed with them scoring 19 points in a quarter after we committed to playing better defense in the second half, the game’s outcome was never in doubt and EWA could also salvage something positive out of a game that had been one-sided up to that point.

Here are a few positive highlights (out of many):

·         Everyone played significant minutes and 9/11 girls scored.

·         This was the best we have run our zone offense. There were a couple of possessions where I truly felt the glow a coach feels when the girls move the ball around with a purpose and have the patience to look for the best shot available.

·         21 lay-up attempts, we ran the floor and passed the ball ahead.

·         The first game where we clearly had the edge on the boards.

·         19 free throw attempts meaning we were taking the ball aggressively to the basket.

Lots of individual kudos but I will highlight these

·         Abbi Eder had a double-double, 14 points and 12 rebounds! A baby “Shaq” is budding .

·         Anna Hamilton- 6 points, 2 rebounds and 3 steals.

·         Emily Aarons- 5 points, 3 steals, and considerably fewer turnovers- she is getting more comfortable and better at running the team on the floor.

No practice today so enjoy your Winter Break and get healthy. We play at NRCA when we return on Tuesday.

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January 29, 2008
Cary Academy                                19
Magellan Charter                            21

Cary Academy lost tonight to conference rivals Magellan in overtime, 21 – 19. Losses like this when your team have played hard are always tough to take. Given that we lost earlier to Magellan 24 -14, this was an improvement and demonstrates that we have closed the gap. There were a number of reasons why we ended up with the loss and need to address in case we play Magellan again in the conference tournament.

·         We turned the ball over 37 times, 19 in the first half alone. Many of these were unforced, girls traveling with the ball by not coming to a jump stop after dribbling, or traveling before we dribbled the ball. We have to do a better job taking care of the ball and looking for the break when we have it, but also recognizing when it’s not there, and backing the ball out and running our offense.

·         We still need to play better team defense, play and see the ball, have help side established, and move our feet and not reach. Magellan got a number of lay-ups because they beat our on-ball defender with penetration and no one was on the help side ready to stop the lay-up.

·         We shot 1/11 from the free throw line. You can do the math on that one.

On the positive side

·         Our press was more effective in terms of setting the first trap, but we did allow Magellan to throw the ball over the top too often. We have to see this and adjust better in games.

·         We did a better job switching defenses from possession to possession, rather than having to wait until the quarter and allow a team to get comfortable attacking a specific defense. This created confusion for Magellan and allowed us to create a number of turnovers.

·         We had our most effective game rebounding, I would venture to say that we at least played them to a draw in this area.

Individuals kudos go to Olivia Banks who had her strongest game to date: 13 points and more importantly 8 rebounds. Abbi Eder also contributed 8 rebounds and 5 steals while Sydney Branson had 6 rebounds. We get a well-deserved chance to practice tomorrow to attempt to fine tune some areas before traveling to East Wake on Thursday.

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January 28, 2008
Cary Academy                        18
Ravenscroft                            31

The MS Blue Girls lost yesterday at Ravenscroft 31 -  18. Ravenscroft started the game on fire, scoring and pressing and before we could even get started, had us down 8 – 0 and 10 -2. We have a difficult time getting started as the first few minutes of each half are a weakness. We did manage to cut into their lead scoring 12 points from the mid first quarter and into the second quarter to cut down their initial lead to 8 points, going in at halftime down 20 -12. In spite of being out-played and out-hustled, we still were in the game.

The third quarter again found Ravenscroft scoring two quick baskets to regain the momentum before we scored three baskets to come back and close the gap. The Ravens shut us out 6 – 0 in the fourth quarter to win by thirteen.

After the game we focused on doing some simple things to improve as a team. Those include rebounding, playing better team defense, especially in transition, and everyone knowing their responsibilities when we are pressed as well as on offense. This was a game which could have been closer as we got a lot of shots near the basket but rather than taking the ball to the basket, we still throw the ball at the basket. Two key numbers for us this game are 0 – the number of free throws we shot and 27 – the number of turnovers we made during the game.  Both reflect that we played without enough confidence and aggressiveness yesterday. We will attempt to switch those two stats around as we will host Magellan Charter today at home.

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January 24, 2008
Cary Academy                   14
St. David’s                         26

Cary Academy failed to avenge our earlier loss to St. David’s as we suffered a 26 – 14 loss yesterday at the SEA. The game was essentially a tale of two halves. The first half found our girls playing passively, St. David’s beat us to every loose ball, out-hustled us, and played like they wanted the game more. They scored 10 points in the first quarter alone and went into half with a 12 – 3 lead. We were not even close to meeting any of our pre-game goals of 20+ layup attempts, 10+ free throw attempts, and limiting the scoring of their best offensive player. At the half, we only had two layup attempts and 12 shots PERIOD, as we turned the ball over too much by making poor passes against their zone defense and not crashing the boards.

We picked things up in the third quarter and ended the game well with a line-up of Emily Aarons, Anna Hamilton, Bailey Plymyer, Sydney Branson, and Reagan Atkins who played inspired basketball the last 3 minutes of the game. If we can bottle up that level of play and use it in other games, we will be a very competitive team down the road. Right now, our main problem is inconsistency and lack of aggressiveness, basketball is four quarters and we just have very long stretches in games where we lose focus and intensity and are unable to make up the ground we lose during those times. Overall, the second half was a bit more even as we scored 11 points to their 14, and did a much better job cutting down on turnovers and rebounding. The second half saw us have 26 shot attempts, more than double the first half.

About those initial goals, 13 lay-up attempts but we converted only two, 13 free throw attempts but we made only 2, and Dunston scored 10 points. We can however compete with St. David’s and will need to, as it is very likely they will be the #1 seed in the conference tournament. So the lessons to take away are simply one, play smarter and less passively. Game kudos go to Sydney Branson who came alive in the second half and was inspired on the boards grabbing 7 rebounds. Carrie Hartsfield led us in scoring with 7 points.

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January 22, 2008
Cary Academy                    30
NRCA                                     23

The MS Blue Girl’s won their second consecutive game today with an exciting 30-23 win versus NRCA. The win moves us to 5 – 4 overall and 2-3 in the TMSC.  After a slow first quarter which saw both teams locked in a 4 -4 tie, the Chargers put together their best offensive quarter of the season with a 15 -4 second quarter to go into the half with a 19 -8 lead. Keying our offense was a strong defensive effort which allowed us to get points off of turnovers. We are beginning to run the floor and more importantly pass the ball down the floor. Most importantly, we have seemed to turn the corner on making lay-ups. Overall we made 10/19 lay-ups. We can still do better, but it makes the game much easier when we score 20 points off of lay-ups in transition.

Everyone played and contributed in which was our finest team effort this year. NRCA had a very quick guard who managed to break our traps off the dribble, and foul out two of our players. We need to do a better job defensively playing with our feet and not reaching. Again, we turned the ball over too many times, 38 TIMES… and we certainly have to cut those down by TWO-THIRDS. NRCA was the first team we have played that played us primarily man-to-man, and it was very apparent as it took us a good two quarters to adjust as we have faced zone defenses in all of our games.

Scoring leaders were Abbi Eder with 11 points, Juliette Parks with 6 points, Olivia Banks with 5 points, Emily Aarons with 4 points, and Reagan Atkins and Sydney Branson with 2 points.  Abbi and Olivia both had great games on the boards, grabbing 6 rebounds apiece.  Rebounding will become a major priority area for us as we have to limit teams to one shot as well as generate additional offense for us off of offensive rebounds.

Thursday is a tough game as we have a rematch with St. David’s at home which will have a huge bearing on seeding for the conference tournament. We need to have a solid practice tomorrow and come out Thursday ready to play solid defense and limit our turnovers.

Hope you can come out and support us this Thursday at 4:00 in the SEA.

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January 17, 2007
Cary Academy                   29
East Wake Academy       16

The CA Blue girls made their homecoming pay off with a nice win over East Wake Academy. The game had quite a few turnovers, fouls, and jump balls, but in the midst of all that, the girls broke out of their offensive slump. Ironically it was our defense which generated a huge chunk of offense, as we played solid man defense and were able to press effectively. EWA had difficulty advancing the ball against our pressure, which gave us many lay-up opportunities off steals. This game we converted many of these lay-ups.

Everyone played and contributed to the win and we were led by Abbi Eder who scored 8 points, including shooting 3/5 from the line, Olivia Banks who also had 8 points, and Sydney Branson with 5 points. Juliette Parks scored 4 points and Carrie Hartsfield and Reagan Atkins scored two points, in what was undoubtedly our most balanced offensive effort to date.

Areas to improve include rebounding and breaking the press on our end. We will also need to reduce our turnovers and take better care of the ball in the next few games.

We pick up again Tuesday with a home game versus NRCA followed by a rematch Thursday at home against St. David’s.

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January 16, 2007
St. David’s                           17
Cary Academy                   10 

The MS Blue girls lost to St. David’s 17-10 yesterday. The loss drops us to 3-4 on the season and 0-3 in the conference. We played well and even in the first quarter and had a 4-3 lead. The second and third quarters were the difference in the game as St. David’s scored all 14 of their remaining points during this time period, while we managed to score only two points. The last quarter saw us hold them scoreless while we countered with 6 points.

We played solid defense most of the game. Switching to a 1-3-1 got us a couple of steals initially in the third quarter but cost us some baskets later when the countered our defense and our girls missed their drops and slides. St. David’s had one player score 15 of their 17 points, so the next time we play them we know who to focus on.

Offensively, again we are getting plenty of shots and starting to move the ball around. The first half saw us use only the right side of the floor, 12 shots taken with 9 from the right side, while in the second half we had more balance, 19 shots taken from the field with 9 of them on the left side of the floor (hurrah!). We only got two lay-up attempts and made 1 of 2. We got no shots from the post and shot 0/6 from the line.

To summarize, St. David’s did a good job controlling the tempo and we got mired into a slowed down game which forced us to have to attack their zone head on with no easy baskets in transition. When we fail to make shots we cannot press, and lose that opportunity to get easy baskets. The few times we were able to press, we did not do a good enough job taking the sideline away thus allowing them to break our press easily. I would also like to see us do a better job next game getting the ball into the post, and we also have to manufacture some points by crashing the offensive boards more aggressively.

We will apply the lessons learned yesterday to East Wake Academy today as we return to the friendly confines of the SEA after five consecutive road games.

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January 8, 2008
Cary Academy                   12
Cary Christian                    25

Cary Academy opened 2008 with a 25- 12 loss to the Cary Christian Knights. We played solid defense the first half after a lethargic start and played the Knights nearly even the first half. A switch to a 1-3-1 defense the second half allowed the Knights to score some baskets after they adjusted tour different look defensively, especially with second shots on the weak-side. A solid start in the fourth quarter allowed us to close the gap to 16 – 12 before the Knights scored the last nine points of the game. The positives for us was solid man-to-man defense which the Knights had some difficulty attacking. We did a great job defensively on Anne Montgomery, who is a solid and skilled post player as Sydney Branson played great post defense. We were also able to create some opportunities off of our pressure in the fourth quarter, and finally did a better job moving the ball against their zone defense, especially since Cary Christian was trapping as we came across half-court. 

Our negatives can be summed in one word—shooting. We did a terrible job shooting, 6/45 from the field including 2/15 on layups and 0/8 from the free throw line. Until we are able to start scoring on a consistent basis, starting with lay-ups, we will have difficulty winning any games against a quality opponent. Shooting has been an emphasis in recent practices and will continue to be an emphasis.

We are in action Thursday at Magellan followed by a game at Durham Academy Friday. The beauty of this week is there is no time to dwell on this result as we turn around and play two more times. This week also allows us to get a few more games under our belt as the fact that we had a relatively light December schedule is starting to catch up to us as we are encountering teams that are more game tested, while we are in many ways still becoming accustomed to performing in games.

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December 19, 2007
Cary Academy                                   11
Triangle Day School                        12

The Cary Academy Blue girls lost their first game of the season yesterday at Triangle Day School. The game, although low scoring and turnover laden, was an exciting, tense, and back and forth. Like our previous two games we forced a great deal of turnovers with our man-to-man defense in the first half and an effective zone trapping defense in the second half. Again, we were unable to convert few if any of our 20 forced turnovers into easy baskets. Unlike the first two games, we also turned the ball over more than we forced (25) and did not do a very good job on the boards. Throw in difficulty with attacking their zone defense and little opportunities in transition and the result is a one point loss.

Still, it was a good effort in which everyone played and contributed. It was only our third game and we have plenty of time to work on the areas where we need to improve. We have gotten off to a good start this season and I am very optimistic about our chances to be a very good team once we come back in 2008.

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December 12, 2007
Cary Academy                        22
Our Lady of Lourdes              19

The Cary Academy MS Blue team squeaked out a close victory this evening against Our Lady of Lourdes. The visitors came in to today’s game with a record of 4- 2 and the difference of having played five more games is significant at this time of the season. We played them to a virtual draw the first two quarters and went in at halftime with an 8 – 7 lead. A parent remarked that he didn’t realize that a halftime score 8-7 in a game could be this exciting.

Things got even more exciting as the Lions outscored us 10 – 4 in the third quarter to take a 17-12 lead into the fourth quarter. Cary Academy returned the favor by scoring 10 points in the final stanza while holding the Lions to 2 points to earn a hard-fought 22 – 19 win. 11 of our 15 girls played and again we got shot attempts from 10 of our 11 players. Getting good shots is not a problem for us so far and we will need to work on shooting in practice so we can begin to make a larger percentage of the good looks we are getting. Shooting will also improve as we have a few more games under our belt and the game on the floor slows down for our players and we get more accustomed to game situations.

Our pressure had mixed results and there was a stretch when we forced a number of turnovers followed by quick baskets. There were also a number of times where the Lions took advantage of our slowness in setting traps and were able to get the ball down the floor for layup opportunities. We played better defense and did a much better job of seeing man and ball. We got 25 steals, that’s an incredible number, especially when contrasted with 15 turnovers. What we need to do better is to convert more of those steals into baskets. Just converting half of those steals into baskets would have doubled the number of points we scored tonight. The biggest area of improvement that we need to work on is rebounding, the Lions hammered us on the boards and we were fortunate that they missed a decent number of shots close to the basket also.

The difference for us today as I told the girls after the game was we made mistakes but played through them today. We have a week to continue to get better before we close out the year next Wednesday with our first road game at Triangle Day School.

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December 7, 2007
Cary Academy                        14
Durham Academy                  7

The 2007-2008 edition of the MS Girl’s Blue team opened their season with a 14-7 win over our rivals from Durham Academy. Like most opening games, there was lots of mistakes and sloppy play. But what we may have lacked in execution, we made up in enthusiasm. There are a number of positives I noted that we can build upon this season

·         As we continue to improve our ability to press effectively, we will have many more opportunities to score easy baskets in an up tempo game.

·         One point of emphasis in my pregame talk was not allowing DA to get any lay-ups, and we accomplished this. They got no penetrating drives to the basket in the half-court and no opportunities in transition. If we can press and not allow the other team to score lay-ups, that’s an awesome combination.

·         We did a solid job on the boards, rebounding is historically a weak area for us.

Overall this was a solid team effort with our 14 points distributed among six different players. Fourteen girls played and all but one got at least one shot attempt. That’s not so good for our shooting percentage, but at least everyone was looking to score and shoot. We had 14 turnovers, not bad for a first game at the middle school level. The turnovers were offset with a combined 24 assists, steals, and blocks.

Individual kudos go to Abbi Eder who had five rebounds and five steals and Caroline Hooker with five steals and control of the game.

Our next game is Wednesday at 4:00 when we host Our Lady of Lourdes.

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