There comes a time when a young college sports team ceases to be young and is left only with the hard reality of proving itself against the league's best.
The Capilano women's basketball team is at or near that point, featuring a lineup loaded with second year players as they enter the second half of the 2014-15 season. The Blues were in rebuilding mode last season on a team that featured eight rookies. Most of those players stuck around this season, however, and now the stakes are much higher. They've lost the safety net of the term "rookie mistake."
Capilano, sporting a 4-3 record, faced a daunting test Friday night at the Sportsplex where they hosted 7-0 Quest University, the fifth-ranked team in the country. For 30 minutes the Blues, with a starting lineup of four second-year players along with fourth-year guard Michelle Errico, stayed right with the bigger, more experienced Kermodes, a team that started no one younger than third year. Late in the third quarter the score was 44-43 for the Kermodes and it was anybody's ball game. But then Quest turned up the pressure, cranked out an 11-1 run to take a commanding 55-44 lead early the fourth.
Capilano closed the gap to four points in the dying minutes but a couple of timely hoops and some accurate free throw shooting gave the Kermodes a 69-56 win and dropped the Blues to .500. It's nights like this that remind Capilano head coach Ramin Sadaghiani that his young-ish team - made even younger when fifth-year point guard Jennafer Palma tore her ACL in the preseason - still has some lessons to learn.
"We were right there — ughh." he said after the game. "It's just part of the maturity of our team, I guess. We've obviously improved a lot from last year but we've just got to get over that hump where we have the maturity to beat a team like that. We had a good game, but it wasn't good enough to take down a team like Quest."
The Kermodes out-rebounded the Blues 63-52 on the night while also playing tough defence to limit the Blues to 25 per cent shooting from the floor.
"Their size is a challenge for sure," Sadaghiani said of Quest, adding that the Blues will need to do a better job of closing out games if they want to beat the best teams in the league.
"Tonight's a perfect example. We just don't get over the hump, kind of put it in another gear against an older and more mature team like Quest," he said. "I think it's just believing in ourselves that we can do it. It kind of comes with our youth — just believing in ourselves and taking our game to the next level. A lot of it is mental. I think physically, and with the skill that we have, we have the players to get the job done. . . . Once we figure it out and get over that hump we're going to be really tough to beat."
Errico led the Blues in scoring with 15 points Friday night, a role the veteran guard often plays. "We depend on her quite a bit to do a lot of things for us," said Sadaghiani of the Windsor secondary grad.
"Offensively she's really tough to guard. She can hit the three, she's got a great dribble pull-up, she does a bit of everything."
Errico is option 1A on a balanced Blues attack that doesn't rely on any one player. Options 1B and C and D can change from game to game. Second year Argyle grad Chelsea Dekleer plays opposite Errico on the wing and can also fill it up from deep. Ashley De La Cruz Yip and Francis Penafiel share point guard duties while Karyn Nelson, Carmel M'Bikata and Cassidy Kapaiwai provide the muscle inside.
All of those players listed above are second years with the exception of Penafiel, a third year, and Errico. The Blues, however, will be adding some more experience — and muscle and talent — in the near future with Elise Horton rejoining the team. The fourth-year player from Coquitlam led the team in scoring and rebounding last season and was named to the PacWest league's first all-star team. The former University of Calgary player didn't attend school in the fall term this season but couldn't resist the call of the ball, rejoining the team for the second term. She's expected to make her debut this weekend during a pair of road games against Columbia Bible College and Kwantlen.
With Horton back in the mix and the sophomores growing ever stronger, the Blues are aiming high during the second half of the season. There's no clear-cut favourite for second-place in the league behind Quest — a spot that comes with an opening round playoff bye — and Sadaghiani thinks Capilano has the talent to grab that spot.
"We're still young, but we have high expectations. We've set our goals pretty high," he said. "We know it's a long season and we're now in the process of getting ready for the playoffs."
Beyond that, Sadaghiani is hoping that the members of his young, talented team stick around long enough to eventually become an experienced, talented team.
"The sky is the limit next year and the year after," said Sadaghiani. "Hopefully the program can get to the point where it's a contender every year. I think the core group that we have right now can really do some special things down the road for CapU women's basketball."
Capilano's next home games will be held Feb. 5 against Kwantlen and Feb. 7 against CBC. Game times are 6 p.m. for the women and 8 p.m. for the men.
