MONTAGUE — It might be fitting, given new Montague coach Jess DeBruin’s expertise in athletic training, that the Wildcats are dealing with player absences so often early in her first season as a head coach. That doesn’t mean she, or the Wildcats themselves, are enjoying that experience.
Having just gotten Braylyn Bultema back from an early-season injury, the ‘Cats were without fellow forward Amanda Cederquist in last Thursday’s game against Kent City, and that was a big absence in a 47-28 defeat.
Montague’s game plan, with Cederquist, would have been to take advantage of how much more height it would’ve had on the floor.
“They didn’t have any height,” DeBruin said. “We had the height, and (with Cederquist) we could’ve taken advantage of it. That was the game plan.”
Even playing shorthanded, Montague got off to a good start, taking an 8-7 lead in the first quarter. However, Kent City, fueled by star Madelyn Geers, ripped off the game’s next 14 points, and the Wildcats never recovered.
“We got tired, and we didn’t rotate,” DeBruin said. “We started to not talk. We didn’t communicate. When you don’t communicate on the floor and play defense...Then the offense doesn’t come.”
Geers had 14 first-half points for Kent City and ended up with 18 for the game. The Wildcats hoped to slow her down, but without Cederquist there to help lock down the lane, Geers was able to get to the rim consistently.
“The game plan was to stop her and she got her points,” DeBruin said. “She played well.”
Bultema was the bright spot of the game for Montague, opening the game with a three-point play on her way to a team-best six. While the production probably wasn’t what she hoped, Bultema didn’t appear to show any ill effects from her injury, which she suffered against Whitehall in game two of the season.
Maizie Collins was one of the Wildcats called upon to play more minutes in Cederquist’s absence, and she managed four second-half points. JV call-ups Jocelyn Rodriguez-Perez and Emily McCombs also were part of the group DeBruin put on the court to fill the gap.
DeBruin said Cederquist will be back within a couple of weeks. In the meantime, Montague will need to continue to adjust to another rejiggered lineup in order to put more wins in the scorebook.
“We practiced without her over the last couple days, and we had the game plan,” DeBruin said. “We just didn’t execute it.”
