Lightning Strikes Up New Era

There’s Lightning in the long-range forecast.
And even with two winters to wait before they join the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC), the St. Mary’s University College women’s basketball squad would love to take some of their soon-to-be league rivals by storm at SAIT’s Fall Classic exhibition tournament this weekend.
“I know what it’s like to play against ACAC teams, and I know what the competition is like, but it’ll be nice to show the rookies what the next few years will be like for them,” said sixth-year point guard and team captain Kaitlin Harding.
“We want to show them that just because we are in a lower league, it doesn’t mean that they can crush us and walk all over us. We’re still competitive. We still practise a lot. Basketball is still our game.”
A long-time top contender in the lower-tier Alberta Colleges Athletic League (ACAL), the basketball squads at
St. Mary’s — a liberal arts and science school with about
600 students — will enroll in the ACAC for the 2012-2013 campaign.
You could call this a sneak preview.
On Thursday afternoon, the Lightning were thumped 94-19 by the Mount Royal Cougars. They’ll try to keep the score closer in Friday’s match against the Red Deer Queens before a date with the host SAIT Trojans on the final day of the tournament.
“I want to see where we are in regards to the powers of the ACAC,” said Lightning coach Randy Peron earlier this week. “Mount Royal and SAIT, those two teams are nationally-ranked teams traditionally, and I just want my team to be able to compete with them.
“All of us would like to have the scores close, but the big picture — and we’ve been talking about it since training camp — is we want to compete regardless of the score and we want to improve on everything that we’ve been working on.”
Now in his fourth season at St. Mary’s, Peron calls this his best recruiting class, and he’s optimistic experience against ACAC squads will only speed their development.
After all, it’s not long before these games will mean something in the standings.
“They know the two years is going to go by quick,” Peron said. “I’m sure, deep-down, they would like it to start today — as I would — but they all understand that we need to prepare as best we can.”
wes.gilbertson@sunmedia.ca