Basketball in Austria

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Greetings!!

It is 2am here in Vienna and I am packing as we leave for Munich tomorrow morning. We had 2 great days in Vienna and we move on to our next venture!

I wanted to update everyone on the games, since we have not told you all exactly what happened in them!

Our first game in Prague was against the Under 18 Junior National Team. We scrimmaged them first on Saturday, and then played a “regular” game on Sunday. I knew they were going to be pretty good, but was not quite prepared for the level of play. They beat us soundly; lets just say it was over 20 points! They were all business. A squad of 10 and all 10 able to handle the ball, shoot and most of all run the court. They were better than any team we will see in our conference, on our schedule for next year and probably in all of Division III. They actually had a practice after our game! They were good! Physical and fast, no smiling and all loose balls were scrums that were played out till someone ripped the ball out of the tangle. (No worries, Dan, no technical, but the refs never called a jump ball and there were about 15 to 20 tie-ups!)

We played hard, but were over matched. We saw some good things from a lot of players. A few of the young players did some good things: Laura Casey, Caitlin Hrebik, Ericka Blair and Danielle Brogan all performed at a high level at different times in the game. I think it was a tough way to open up here in Europe, but we fought and can only help us for the future.

Our second game against the club team outside of Vienna was much different than the Czech team. Their coach was from Chicago and all the players could speak English. They were friendly from the start and it was obvious their skill was not nearly as good as the Czech team. We came out aggressive from the start (we obviously felt more comfortable after getting our feet wet with the European style of play). We won handily, by 40 points or so.

Ally Blair and Hilary Murray really stepped up their game and showed off their senior leadership. Ally’s size and strength dominated inside and Hilary made some spectacular passes all night. Amanda Kreuder made some nice plays going to the basket, while Alyssa B. and H. both got into the scoring column and were hustling all over the court. Laura Jordan bounced back from a tough game against the Czech’s and got some nice scores inside off some great looks from the guards. Katie O. was all over the court and made her lay-ups going hard to the basket, which will mean trouble for our opponent’s back in the States!!

Our fast break was in full gear (one of the highlights was a steal and a break with Danielle going behind her back to beat the defender and laying in up for a great score!) and our defense caused a lot of turnovers. We shot the ball well and in general played more aggressive. Katie M. played well in both games as she played with no fear, and our newest addition, Sarah L. has gotten her feet wet quickly being thrown into the fire immediately! This will only help in Sarah’s improvement and adjustment to the team.

Coach Sara and Coach Endler have been outstanding all trip…except for a few cases of forgetfulness. They are invaluable to our success here! And of course, Christa D. has embraced her new position as manager like she has been doing it for years!!

Labels: bottom photo: Lady Greyhounds and our new Ausrian friends, Top Photo: the coaches celebrate after a big victory in Austria

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