Maples JV girls have big hoop dreams

The Maples

Maples Collegiate’s junior varsity girls basketball team took hold of top spot in the Manitoba High School Athletics Association’s rankings in the week of Jan. 16 after winning three tournaments and going 3-0 in league play to kick off the 2022-23 season.

“It’s feeling good. The first thing I’ll say is it’s a great group of girls, and it’s making it a lot of fun,” head coach Myles Panganiban said.

Panganiban said this is his first time coaching a girls team and a junior varsity team — he coached the Maples Collegiate varsity boys last year — so the approach is a little different.

“Junior varsity is a bit more of a developmental age,” he said. “It’s about really teaching them basketball, in terms of letting the game flow, as well as improving all their skills in all facets. The biggest thing that I’ve really been emphasizing with the girls is we got to defend and we have to compete at a high level every single time you’re out there.”

Panganiban said early on, the team has bought into a defending mindset and has been finding an identity in that outlook on the game.

The coach said the team has high goals. He believes the team can not only win its division (KPAC Tier 1), but it’s also aiming to hang up a provincial title banner in the Maples gym when all is said and done.

“We are a good team right now, but we want to be as best as we can come March. So again, just daily improvement on whatever it is, from the starters to deeper into the bench. We want to get contributions from everywhere,” he said.

Grade 10 student and point guard Sirat Sarn said the team looks like it’s headed in the direction their coach wants them to go.

“As the games go on, our bench is getting going and getting more points off the bench. I think we’re getting better as a team every practice, even though we still have bad games. But our team is doing really good in the season,” Sarn said.

Sarn said it’s a good group of girls making up the team, and they support each other and help each other get better.

“We’re keeping each other up. We always hype each other up on the bench, whether the bench players are on or the starters are on, the consistent energy just keeps going… our success is helping each other out whenever we can, and staying together as a team,” the 15-year-old said.

Ella Castres, a point guard in Grade 9, said that team support has translated into results on the court.

“I think our chemistry is really good. We really know what’s going on in every single game that we play,” she said.

Still, Castres said the team would benefit from becoming even more communicative on the court. She said she’s confident the team will continue to get better and make a run at a championship.