Rattlers women’s basketball thrives on veteran presence

By JAMES TUBB on December 3, 2021.

It’s been two veterans leading the way for the Medicine Hat Rattlers women’s basketball team this season

As the Rattlers come off a 65-46 win over Red Deer last Sunday, their first of the year, head coach Clayton Nielsen says senior forwards Katelyn Rozdeba and Abygail LaRochelle have been a big part of their strength to start the season.

“They’re leading the league in rebounds right now, hitting the boards hard, Kate’s our second leading scorer,” Nielsen said.

He credits those veterans for showing the younger players the Rattlers way.

“That’s the plan, you have your vets stay as long as you can at the college and they teach the younger ones what it takes to be on this team and how to play at this level that we expect our players to be at,” Nielsen said.

The Rattlers are 1-3 to start the season and face an undefeated St. Mary’s University team tonight in the Hat, then Saturday in Calgary. Nielsen says he thinks the matchup with the strong St. Marys team will be a good test for them heading into the Christmas break and will allow them to learn from their early season losses.

“You have to be engaged in the moment, we have to stay in that moment of playing well and not let our brains turn off,” Nielsen said. “If we do that it will be a close game for sure and it’ll be awesome to see. They are a talented team and it will be a good measuring stick for us to see where we are really at.”

Nielsen says he thought heading into the season their strength would be in the post, but did not perceive just how dominate his team would be down low.

“I expected as a team we would rebound well, try hard and grind down the boards and try to be a team that is hard to play against that’s what we expected,” Nielsen said. “I didn’t expect Kate and Aby both to be doing so well as a pair rebounding wise.”

The Rattlers sit first in the league in rebounding margin as well as total rebounds through their first four games. It’s is a game style Nielsen says will benefit the Rattlers come the postseason.

“Once you get into playoff basketball, you need those rebounds and you need to make sure you grab everyone and right now we are doing a good job of that,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen says it has taken his young team some time to adjust to playing the later game this season, as they used to play before the men’s team but have since changed. He says this has been a part of the Rattlers being outscored in the third quarter of all their games this year.

He added keeping their focus throughout games as the season progresses will determine their success.

“A learning experience for our young group,” Nielsen said. “You can’t just turn it on and win a little bit, but then it turns off and people will catch up. There’s really good teams in this league and you can’t just play one good half and be expected to win.”

Tonight’s game gets underway at the Family Leisure Centre at 8 p.m.