Our women’s basketball team suffered an early playoff exit, but shows more promise than most York teams
Daniel Rependa
Staff Writer
@excalweb
Another York sports season has come to an end. This one wasn’t quite as dramatic as the women’s volleyball ending. However, it’s still an end worth noting. The York women’s basketball team was recently eliminated from the first round of the playoffs by the Toronto Varsity Blues.
Now, the York loss wasn’t really too much of an upset given their track record for the majority of the season. The Lions barely made it into the playoffs, holding on for the last possible position. Even though they did make the playoffs they only made it with a win percentage
of .364 in the Eastern conference. In the rival Western conference of the OUA, the last-place team to make the playoffs had a win percentage of almost .500.
U of T consistently beat York throughout the season by 15 to 20 points per game. Statistically speaking, the Lions weren’t showing much promise for their post-season hopes and dreams.
This is the same story as every other York team we’ve had this season, excluding the women’s volleyball team. The men’s basketball team finished with a win percentage of .227, which was still somehow good enough to earn them a bottom-ranked position in the playoffs and get eliminated first round. Our men’s volleyball team had a practically .500 season and scraped the bottom of the playoff positions and were also eliminated first round by McMaster. Are we seeing a pattern here?
Now, I’m not complaining. I’ve said it before—and still maintain—that any season with a trip to the playoffs is a worthwhile season. And so far, most of our teams have been able to pull that off. Any sports fan will tell you anything can happen in the playoffs, especially when it’s set up in a single game elimination style. But, unfortunately, the York women’s basketball team wasn’t any different than most of our other teams. They played an okay season with enough wins to establish themselves in a playoff position.
However, now that the post-season is over we can start looking up for next year. The women’s basketball team has steadily improved over the past three years with respect to the amount of wins they put behind their name.
They have got a roster with eight out of 13 girls being only in their first or second season of basketball, showing a great potential for long-term team chemistry and development. Also, one of those rookies, Samantha Ernest, was elected to the OUA All-Rookie team.
We have got a head coach, Bill Pangos, who knows what it takes to make it to CIS championships and has been with the women’s Lions basketball team for their first OUA championship ever and has also been named OUA coach of the year five times. Overall, we have a solid developing team with great talent and staff to back it all up. I think all that’s required now is a little bit of patience and hard work.
Like everybody else, I want to see the Lions succeed for York. And when it comes to a lot of our teams, especially our women’s basketball team, we are very young and capable of making this happen. So, please York, let’s just make it happen.
