The first scrimmage

It may have taken a good part of the first eight-minute quarter, but the varsity players on the Corvallis High girls basketball team began to get into a rythym on Saturday morning.

The varsity played against the junior varsity team and two assistant coaches in a controlled scrimmage with officials. They played a full four quarters in the format of a live game, then played another extended quarter to work more on offenses and defenses.

All-in-all, it was a productive morning for the players and coaches.

But they admitted there is a loooong way to go before the first game against West Salem on Dec. 4.

"We did OK, we definately have to keep on getting better," coach Joe Williamson said. "We are making a few too many mental errors like just dropping passes in our hands, things that we can control, not like a turnover because the defense is forcing us."

Senior post Karly Laney had the same thought.

"I think we played pretty well, but we just need to execute the plays better and also our turnovers, in a real game our turnovers would be killing us," she said. "For the most part we were communicating pretty well."

It was a good opportunity to work on running the offense against a defense that doesn't always know what is going to be run, like it does in practice.

It was nice so the players could, "get out there and see how you can fit a drive in, how to fit your shot in," junior Katie Schrock said.

Schrock had a strong showing working mostly at point guard with the absence of starter Gabe Johnson, who was back East watching her brother's final football game for Yale.

"At first it was really scary for me because i've been playing the last two years as guard and now I had to go in as point guard and it's like, it's been a while," Schrock said. "

Johnson's absence was a positive and a negative.

"Yeah, I mean its good for the other girls but it's not good for our team to not have her here," Williamson said. "We'll be ready to have her back on Monday."

Said Schrock: "(It is good) for me, Z (McKenzie Redberg) and Alaina (Adams) to be able to get out there. We have to get good timing and (used to) playing other positions. Then in a game if something happens we know we can handle it without her. But it would be really nice to have her here."

Having the officials at the game was a new wrinkle from practice as well.

"In practice you don't really call things or things aren't consistent so it's good to have a ref out here especially with the new guidelines and rules that came out so we know how they're going to be called so we can learn how to play with that during season," Schrock said.

It wasn't much fun for Laney, who was whistled for four fouls in the first half, at first. She managed to play solid in the second half and was only called for one more.

"Personally, a lot of the fouls were ticky tack fouls and I played pretty much the same intensity the second half," she said. "They just didn't call them at the end."

It will be a short week of practice with the Thanksgiving break eliminating practice on Thursday and Friday.

"I feel like we're in a good spot," Schrock said.