Linden’s girls’ basketball team is sitting on top of the world right now. But it took a lot of soul searching, long meetings and bouts of doubt to get there.
Linden stormed out of the Fenton High School gym last week with a 49-39 victory over arch-rival Fenton which not only put the Eagles in first place in the Flint Metro League Stripes Division but gave it a season sweep over the Tigers.
The Eagles (11-5 overall, 8-1 in league play) were not always flying high this season. The Christmas break lacked holiday cheer. To be honest it was a bit of a bah humbug stretch. Linden expected a banner season, but the Eagles lacked chemistry, were not on the same page and desperately searched for what was missing.
There were meetings on the court, meetings in the locker room and meetings in the coach’s office. Team captains Addison Acker and Addyson Sturgis even led an unproductive team meeting.
Madeline Brender, the enthusiastic never say die coach, knew the silver lining was coming . She just didn’t know when or how.
“I am not going to lie to you, but Christmas break it was a bit iffy,” Brender said. “We have a great team. We have great kids. We were not there as a unit yet. It was a big switch in January knowing we had to play for each other and for the greater good.”
One day, she noticed her players nodding their heads in agreement. At that moment she knew they had figured it out.
“Instead of bogging down or getting down on ourselves after our mistakes we began playing for the greater good,” Brender said
There was an assortment of issues to get through, but the primary change was players decided good team defense was the key out of this funk. After a 3-3 start Linden ripped off eight wins in nine games before an overtime loss to co-leader Flushing Tuesday.
In eight Stripes Division wins the Eagles gave up just 23.7 points a game.
Shaye Barkholz led a balanced attack with 13 points against Fenton. Sturgis chipped in with 10 points and Lila Nester had nine.