Lack of composure means loss for Lions

Lewis Chaitov
Staff writer
There’s nothing harder to watch than a team not playing to their full potential.
And on Jan. 29, the women’s basketball team was the hardest to watch. The Ryerson Rams defeated the Lions  66-57, with nothing but York’s disappointment looming afterward. The women lost to a team who were arguably quite weak,  and not that far from the Lions in the standings.

The game marked the seventh consecutive loss for the team, with the women’s last win dating all the way back to Jan. 7; this was followed by their first ugly loss, against the Queen’s Gaels, 71-62.
The match started off a real disaster: the team shut down and the Rams took over. The lack of togetherness and bad coordination by the Lions rendered the team futile against their Toronto rival. The Lions tried for a comeback in the third quarter, managing to catch up and close the gap with only nine points to tie the score, but it just wasn’t enough. The game ended before the Lions could pull one over their opponents.
“If we continue to keep our heads up and just play through the toughness and just continue working hard, I feel we will gain our composure back,” said rookie forward Llyandra Kerr, who finished with nine rebounds that night.
There definitely seems to be a lack of composure and urgency on the court since the break, and a lot of foolish mistakes that the Lions should know how to avoid. The energy that helped keep the team moving in the start of the season looks to be dwindling, slowly turning into thin air.
While the game was not their best, top player Brittany Szockyj was the only one keeping her team alive with 13 points, and a determined effort to continuously take the ball away from the Rams. When it came down to it, however, there was not much she could do in outplaying the Ryerson Rams and unfortunately, the end result was a loss.
There are five games left in the regular season, games where the York Lions will be able to redeem themselves. The next home game for the women’s basketball team is this Friday at six pm at Tait McKenzie Centre, when the Lions takes on the third place team in the east division, the Ottawa Gee-Gees.
York is now in fifth place, with six teams in the east going to the playoffs.