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by COREY ATKINSON Fort McMurray TODAY staff
March 17, 2010: The Keyano Huskies women's basketball team hasn't played a game yet, but head coach Clayton Nielsen already knows they'll be a bit on the young side when they officially do take the court next season.
Nielsen has been busy over the past few months building a program as the team took a year off between Alberta Colleges Athletic League and their first season in the much bigger Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference.
"This year, I think recruiting has been great," said Neilsen, who was an assistant coach in the Red Deer Queens program. "The one positive of not playing ACAL this year is that both (men's coach) Mike (Connolly) and I were able to do a lot more recruiting than probably we would have if we were playing and coaching."
The recruiting is starting to bring in some players for the women's team — including four who have committed for the 2010-11 season. They are centre/forward Anita Balogh (H.J. Cody, Sylvan Lake), point guard Sam Connolly (LCI, Lethbridge), shooting guard Cassandra Gilmore (W.R. Myers, Taber) and point guard Kasey Reiter (PGSS, Prince George, B.C.).
"Recruiting in huge and for me, I was able to see a couple of really big 4A tournaments in Edmonton and Calgary," Nielsen said. "I was able to get eight confirmed people to come up here for next year and that's huge for us. We're going to be new in the league and really young."
Neilsen said he can't imagine anyone in the league being younger than the Huskies. He plans to go with a roster full of 2010 high school grads.
"This year, being able to go and see them and talk to them, I'm pretty excited," Nielsen said. "It's been really good for us for fall next year."
While they are planning on starting with literally no experience and the other teams have oodles, Nielsen hopes the Huskies to be competitive fairly quickly.
"It really depends on our maturity and our growth as we go throughout the year, carrying on over to the second year," Nielsen said. "We have a really good chance of competing right away — and that's our goal — but it's going to be tough because we're really young and you can't expect them to be first place or second place when you're just out of high school."
Last week, the Huskies men's volleyball team announced the recruitment of 20-year-old Stephen Shields and Brock Payne, a 19-year-old, as two of their recruits for 2010. Shields is a six-foot-six right side from Neelin High School in Brandon, Man., while Payne, a six-foot-five left side, went to Vincent Massey High School, also in Brandon |