Bosch making CW debut
Finally, Kacie Bosch gets to come home. The University of Lethbridge Pronghorns women’s basketball team opens their Canada West season tonight when they host the Brandon Bobcats at 6 p.m. at the 1st Choice Savings Centre.
After watching the entire last season from the sidelines when she was felled by an ACL injury, the local product will make her Canada West debut after spending the previous two seasons with the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the NCAA.
Still, as the Horns wrapped up practice Wednesday afternoon, tonight’s home debut was still a tad surreal.
“It doesn’t really feel like real life right now, coming to play for the home town is a pretty big deal,” said Bosch. “So I’m excited to play in front of my family and my friends and the whole community.”
Pronghorns head coach Dave Adams was beaming at the prospect of bringing his five-foot-nine point guard back into the mix.
“Kacie is just a rare gem of a person and a player,” said Adams. “So I couldn’t be more ecstatic and thrilled for her to get out and finally suit and boot and get to play again. I think a lot of Kacie; a lot of this is not only that recovery back from the injury physically, but you go through the trauma of the injury mentally and she’s gotten herself better every single week.
“The other part for Kacie is that, for her, positionally she gets to go back to point guard, where she’s an absolute natural.”
As her teammates put in a tough off-season regiment, so did Bosch.
“I was nursing my ACL injury for most of it and then in July I started to be able to play contact” she said. “Just playing a little two-on-two and three-on-three and working my way up to five-on-five, full court. My teammates have been amazing, helping me along the way.”
With the Bobcats beckoning tonight, Bosch gave herself the green light.
“It feels really good,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’ve missed a beat from last year. I’m not hesitant at all, I don’t feel any different. I’m not afraid to drive to the hoop, which is more my style of game. I’m really happy with the way the rehab has gone where I don’t have to second guess anything.”
That’s good news for a Horns team intent on building on last season’s 5-15 record as the teams start playing for points tonight.
“This is where you get your Friday and Saturday report cards now,” said Adams. “So we’re excited because we feel that this program is hungry and motivated. We’re coming at it with a fail-forward mindset. So we look at last year, we missed the playoffs on the last night of the regular season. We’ve had all summer to think about that and stew about it and change it. So somewhere over the course of the summer they put up 10,000 shots to get themselves skilled, they’ve spent time their strength and conditioning coach to make themselves better. So they were on court or in the strength and conditioning room four times a week all summer.”
The Pronghorns rolled through a 6-2 exhibition season, wrapping up the preseason last weekend with a win in Montana courtesy a 54-53 overtime win over Montana State University Northern in Havre.
“We’re really pleased with our preseason,” said Adams. “We finished 6-2 and I think we had two really quality wins in there. We beat Wilfred Laurier from Ontario, who is an Ontario West playoff team, a good program. Any time you have beat Montana Northern in Havre, that’ a quality win.
“It’s a nice a mix of old and new, so we’re thrilled. (First-year players) Millay Johnson, Amy Mazutinec, Jessica Zarowny are all southern Alberta, bluechip recruits. They’ve all come in, and in fact, in the preseason every single one of them has started a game for us. But then you blend into that the fact we have some wiley, cagey veterans that have been around for a while. So Zoe (Dahl) coming into her fifth year. Danielle Fritzke, who just got back onto the roster after an injury in her fourth year, having that mixed in. Kathryn Hankins is in her fourth year and, of course, adding Kacie after a year out with injury.”