Vande Graaf up to the challenge

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This article was published 18/07/2023 (1152 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lilly Vande Graaf looks like a modern basketball player.

She’s tall — 5-9 and still growing — with a skill set that was once the exclusive domain of smaller players.

The 16-year-old guard begins her Grade 11 season at Vincent Massey Collegiate this fall but before that she’ll be an integral part of Manitoba’s 17U female team at the national championships, slated for July 31-Aug. 5 in Calgary.

“She’s a perimeter player for us,” said provincial team head coach Eric Sung before Tuesday’s practice at the Sport for Life Centre. “She’s very disruptive on the defensive end. Super long. She has very good feet and she’s always in front of you contesting shots, digging for the ball. Just kind of in your way all the time.

“She’s a very good athlete who runs the floor super well.”

Vande Graaf’s hustle and grit has quickly earned the respect of forward Izzi Fust.

“I love playing with Lilly,” said Fust, the Dakota Collegiate forward who will be the most sought after high school recruit in Manitoba during her Grade 12 season.

“She’s very good at listening and she’s always very positive. And she’s just such a fun energy to be around. Whenever we’re playing together, she’s good at seeing things and she takes the right shots and she makes majority of them.”

Vande Graaf has been content to learn a lot, soaking up some of Fust’s vast experience.

“She’s a good leader and just playing against someone who’s bigger, stronger, gives you a challenge,” said Vande Graaf.

On the floor, Vande Graaf seems inexhaustible and that could be due in part to her sideline sport on the track. She has a promising career as a middle-distance runner with the Tough Track club to go with her basketball interests.

“Basketball has been my priority and then track kind of came along as a second thing,” said Vande Graaf, who won the provincial junior varsity 800-metre title in 2022 and followed that up with a silver medal in the provincial JV 400-metre race in 2023.

“And so I haven’t fully given it a shot with full training and everything. That’s like my plan kind of for this year but basketball will still be a priority. Just trying to like make it work on my off days.”

The next order of business is preparing for nationals. Fust and Vande Graaf make up two-fifths of Sung’s group of starters, which also involves Taylor Schepp, Paige Schatkowsky, Abby Sweeny and Halley Cruz in the rotation of first-line players.

Sung’s players went 13-1 in pre-tournament play and they’re hopeful of cracking the top four at nationals after the Manitoba 17U team finished out of the medals at the 2022 Canada Summer Games.

“I think it definitely took a minute for chemistry, because we all came just from the school season as rivals,” said Fust. “But I think now we’ve felt the chemistry and we’re able to play together as one group.”

Before nationals, Fust has been chosen by Basketball Canada to make a stopover in Memphis, Tenn., at the inaugural College Basketball Academy for women. The event is intended to give prospective NCAA players a taste of the college basketball experience.

At nationals, Manitoba has five games in the group stage before the playoffs begin.

“Our theme is we’re going to earn everything that we kind of get and I don’t think we’re gonna walk over anybody,” said Sung, who also serves as head coach of the Dakota varsity girls program. “I think they’re gonna be fairly competitive games. The majority of these kids have played a lot of these kids before already throughout the year, not just at nationals but by being a part of a travel team… So I don’t think they’ll be intimidated by anybody.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14