Orcas girls basketball hits the court scoring

Published 11:33 am Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Lady Vikings came out scoring against North Sound Christian on Dec. 1, beating North Sound 39-29. Top scorer for the Vikings that day was Lanie Padbury with 20 points. And Orcas was even at a slight disadvantage; the team members participating on the basketball team had just finished a very successful soccer season and barely squeaked by with the five mandatory practices needed in order to play the scheduled basketball games.

The next game the Vikings played was just as exciting and the Lady Vikings rolled over Lakewood, a 2A school, 47-36.

“We got off to a great start at that game; it was 18-3 at the end of the first quarter,” Coach Terry Moran-Hodge commented. “What was great about that game was the team’s scoring accuracy and the energy. We’re not missing any shots, and that was only our second game. We are anxiously anticipating the start of the league games tomorrow, Dec. 15.”

Against Lakewood scoring-wise, Vikings Stephanie Shaw had 15 points through the hoop, Padbury had 14, Alison O’Toole had 10, Emily Diepenbrock scored four, Kenna Thomas scored two and Kathryn Tidwell had two.

O’Toole was the top rebounder for Orcas with 11 rebounds and seven steals.

“O’Toole narrowly missed having a triple double,” Moran-Hodge said. “It’s a really rare stat in basketball; you have to have double figures (over 10) in whatever categories you can; usually you do it with points, rebounds, assists or steals. And Alison almost had a triple double. Padbury also had 10 rebounds.”

The Vikings use a full court press to shake up the offense and bring on fast breaks and the team was firing on all cylinders against Lakewood, causing lots of disruptions in the Lakewood offense.

“They had a really hard time bringing the ball up against us,” Moran-Hodge said. “If we could play every first quarter like that I would be a happy coach. The shooting accuracy was unreal, and we just overwhelmed the other team. They didn’t know what sort of tornado they were walking into.”

The Vikings have four solid seniors scoring for them this year, and there are some up and comers on the bench as well. The entire team is a threat, and with that kind of diversity Orcas will be hard to beat.

“Im just really excited to see what’s unfolding this season. I’m expecting the same improvement over this year that I saw last year,” Moran-Hodge said.

Their biggest threats this year in the league are Darrington and La Conner, who are projected to finish ahead of Orcas in the pre-season poll. Orcas is projected third in the league.

The Lady Vikings’ next game is Tuesday, Dec. 15 against Concrete, at 5 p.m. and then Mt. Vernon Christian on Thursday Dec. 17 at 5 p.m. Both games are home games.

“Mt Vernon has been really good in the past but you never know from one year to the next,” Moran-Hodge said. “As a coach, I’m always nervous before every game. We just have to do what we do right.”