MONTREAL- The road to victory is an especially long and difficult one, even more so for the Villa Maria Midget basketball team. Villa Maria has a tradition of doing extremely well in basketball, winning games and tournaments. Within the last four years, teams have taken home gold medals, tournament banners, championship titles and provincial praise. The determination and dedication is clearly shown in the eyes of the eleven girls that made this year's team and they're dribbling up a storm, committed to prove they will go all the way.

Basketball has been a sport rapidly growing in popularity since Dr. James Nismith thought up the concept on December 21, 1891, first using peach baskets as the hoops. The sport has matured greatly, evolving from thirteen simple rules of play to over sixty, making basketball one of the worlds highest rated and highly watched sports.

At Villa Maria, the fundamentals, such as simple dribbling and the proper shooting stance are all taught at after school practices for two hours, three times a week. "Basketball requires a lot of determination," stated long time post player, Carolyn De Luca. "You have to be completely dedicated and you can't give up. If something goes wrong in practice, just keep working at it until you get better!"

When asked her opinions on playing basketball for Villa Maria, point guard Jennifer Sotero replied, "I love basketball. I've been playing for seven years, three of which have been at Villa. I love it because of the competitiveness." And all basketball players know the sport is focused around competition, though, finding a team that will push the Villa Lynx's has been the more difficult challenge. The coaches strategy and solution is a simple one: "Play more outside tournaments, other than the GMAA teams."

There are some students that believe basketball interferes with schoolwork, but guard Megan Eva disagrees, "Games and practices are after school. Basketball pushes you to make up a set schedule and follow it. You can't slack off and personally, after you play, you don't want too. Even though it [basketball] demands a lot, I can handle the pressure."

"This year, we're going to win, win, win. We’re going to win the city championship and go to the provincials," claims assistant coach Mike Gallagher, when asked about how he thought this year's team would do. According to the players, his sarcastic tone and fatherly personality always seem to make the practices and long hours exciting. When asked what he thought was the most important element in basketball, he smirked and retorted, "Keeping the girls away from the boys!"

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