The women’s basketball team hosted and finished second in the Raymond James Tournament December 29 and 30. The participating teams were Blackburn College, Wilmington College, Franklin College and Saint Mary’s College.
ranklin defeated Blackburn College 68-53 on Monday, December 29 to advance to the championship game against Wilmington College on Tuesday, December 30. The Grizzlies came up short, though, on Tuesday, 76-70.
Overall, Coach Eiler was pleased with how the tournament went and how the women played; however, it was left up to them to prepare themselves for the tournament due to their six-day break over the holidays. The team came back to Franklin on the 26th. Eiler felt that this was not only a good physical break, but a mental one as well, letting the women escape from the school environment and the stress of the season.
“We have been laid off since December 14th because of the North Central game that was cancelled,” Eiler said. “They had told us that if we traveled up to North Central for the game, we wouldn’t be able to get back home for another two days, so we just didn’t go. With that said, we were a little rusty Monday night, but we played really well on Tuesday.”
Even though the women had been given a break from not only games but practices as well, Eiler was confident that this tournament was a good start to their schedule after break. Their January and February schedule is full of conference games, is going to be the most important seven weeks of their season.
According to Eiler, there were not only a couple key players in the tournament, but she described it as a good “core group of girls” who carried the team Monday and Tuesday.
“I was very pleased with this nice core group of players,” Eiler said. “Not only were they scoring points, they were doing good things on the boards as well. On Monday, we actually had three girls make double-doubles. On Tuesday, it was just a nice effort by the entire team.”
Although Franklin fell to the ranked Wilmington College squad, Coach Eiler decided to focus on the positive side. She felt as though the team played extremely hard, and is not disappointed because she knows Wilmington is a very good team.
She hopes the girls can realize how hard they can play and how fast the pace of their game can be after playing Wilmington. Eiler said she thinks the girls finally played the type of game they never knew they could; they really “stepped it up a notch” on Tuesday, and Eiler seemed proud of her players.
“Being the hosts of a tournament, you want to make it a good tournament and bring in teams that you know will make you better,” she said.
