FALL RIVER: A group of girl basketball players from Nova Scotia, including one from Fall River, showed that anything is possible if you work hard.
Ashleigh Marshall and seven other friends made up the Sting girls basketball team that headed south of the border on April 14-15 for the Queen of Boston tournament near Boston, Mass.
The girls, which are from across the N.S. and coached by Andy MacKay of the New Glasgow ares, won the tournament, winning the final 46-39. That victory secured the team a berth in the National Finals, scheduled for June 2-3 near Boston.
“We weren’t really expecting to win,” said Marshall on April 18. “We had the goal to win, but we thought it might not happen.
“We went, we played hard and we ended up winning. It was awesome. It was exciting.”
Sitting inside Good Day Cafe in Fall River on a dreary day, the Grade 11 student at Lockview High spoke about how the opportunity came about.
“A lot of my friends, we haven’t played together for awhile so my friends dad said he would put a team together sow e could all play as one,” she said. “That’s how it came up. We got to play together again. It was pretty cool.”
Marshall said the expectations were to improve their performance each game by playing against stiffer competition, and that they did with them outworking the opposition in the final. They lost one game all tournament long.
“We had no practices before we went,” she said. “”The team we played in the final was very rough and gave us a good challenge and run for our money.”
The win was not expected.
“We weren’t’;t expecting that, and hopefully we do get to go back down for the nationals,” said Marshall.
For Marshall, she hopes this extra competition could bring about more exposure to college and university teams as she heads towards her Grade 12 year.
“It be nice to be seen more by people down there,” she said. “I’m just excited to play with my friends again.”