The women’s club basketball team had a successful start to its season at its home tournament this past weekend. Team White went undefeated, 7-0, to win the championship, while Team Black went 5-1 to place third. 

“On Saturday we played Duke, and then we played Elon, and then we played VCU, and then we played Wake Forest,” said senior co-president Sam Olsen about Team White. “We won all of them by 20 points or more. We were the only team that had to play four games. Everybody else played three. But we were undefeated on Saturday, so we got the No. 1 seed today.”

Junior shooting guard and small forward Brianna Harvey described Team White’s start on Saturday.

“Yesterday we were actually really good,” Harvey said. “It took a while for us to get into our groove, but once we did, it was really just a fast game and we had a lot of fast breaks, and that’s how we got our lead.”

For Sunday, Team White had a slightly less taxing schedule.

“Today we played UNCG first, and then we played Clemson, and then we just beat UNC Blue Team for the championship,” Olsen said. “We went 7-0.” 

Team Black had similar success Saturday but lost one game Sunday.

“The black team played Wake Forest, Appalachian State, UNCG, Pembroke, but they went 5-1 all weekend,” Olsen said. “They were undefeated yesterday and got the No. 3 seed overall, and today they lost in the semifinals to get third.”

One concern from the start of the semester was the club’s shooting, as explicitly expressed by senior co-president Anna Lavella. 

“We need to get better at [shooting], going through the reps during practice, getting more shots up,” Lavella said. “We tend to shoot a lot of shots, and if we were to get more of those to go in, we’d definitely be able to win certain games.”

Both teams shot relatively well, especially Team White, who easily outscored its opponents.

“Our shooting improved a lot,” Olsen said. “We were very confident in our shooting; we made a lot of shots. So what we’ve been doing in practice is definitely paying off, and we won every game by double digits or more, so it definitely worked out for us.” 

Another area of concern has been stamina, especially with Team White playing four games on Saturday, followed by three more on Sunday. 

“I think we did good, especially because we had 10 or 11 people, so we would just sub in five at a time,” Harvey said. “And like I said, we kept the intensity going. Fast breaks were the majority of our points, and the fact that we were in shape really helped with that.”

As a team, Harvey stated the importance of stamina.

“It’s just more staying in shape as a whole, because I know especially playing four or five games in a day, [we] will get tired towards the end.” Harvey said.

As a personal goal, Harvey plans to improve her ball-handling skills for the next tournament.

“For me, it’s probably just executing my dribble moves more, because my shot was pretty much okay — it was over 50 percent,” Harvey said.

The club has a couple of weeks before its next tournament. Olsen said the team will be traveling to Chapel Hill Feb. 22 and 23.