Bittersweet end to season

[attach]6949[/attach]In speech to her bronze medal-winning Atom rep basketball squad Stacy Ganogiannis-Reid, with tears in her eyes, announced she was stepping down.

“I’m going to miss these little guys because two years together … it’s hard, I broke down yesterday,” said Ganogiannis-Reid, the day after an end of season banquet with the squad.

“I phoned [coach Jon Jarvis] and say ‘I hope I made that right move,’ ” said Gangiannis-Reid, who also coaches girls hoops at East York Collegiate. “I had second thoughts because we have such a close knit East York family. Ultimately, they knew I was making the right decision for me.”

“Her extensive coaching experience was invaluable to me and to the team,” wrote Jarvis, in an email. “But I really appreciated the energy and drive she brought to every practice and game, which rubbed off on the whole team.

“Everyone on the team will miss her a lot next season; it won’t be the same without her.”

She will now be developing and coaching an East York-based girls squad, which will include her young daughter, Aeleni, who played a pivotal role on the Atoms this year.

“It’s also time because even though Aeleni did enjoy herself and respected her teammates and coaches, you can tell. It’s one girl and the rest boys,” said Ganogiannis-Reid. “You can see it, that age, ahh this is where they don’t like each other as boys and girls.”

Ganogiannis-Reid’s team may have won a gold the year before, and has taken her East York Athenas to the city championships in 2009, but this bronze medal still shows her magic touch.

“The first year coaching Novice, we did lose a lot because I was new to that age group,” she said. “But, the second year, we won gold in Division 5, we were just flabbergasted.”

The East York squad may have come short of gold, but the team was feisty and competitive in a league with stiff competition.

Nahjae Brooks was an outstanding rebounder, Miles Anderson was a terrific shooter, and Degan Noble was an “Energizer bunny” for the squad, said Ganogiannis-Reid. The team chemistry was never in doubt, and the kids bonded over the season.

“We were an undersized team that used athleticism and energy to battle against bigger opponents,” wrote Jarvis, in an email. “We competed in five tournaments this year, played some very good teams in all of them, and came away with medals in 4 of the tournaments.”

Aeleni was the only girl on an 11-person squad, and she treasured every moment on the court.

“The practices, we had fun and my team was very good,” Aeleni said. “They were very good [on the court], some can dribble through their legs, they can shoot from far away.”

Moving up to Division 4 basketball after their gold medal win, the team had to face some major competition over the winter months to qualify for a return appearance in this spring’s final tilts.

It is success that Aeleni didn’t expect.

“At the beginning, last year, we were losing, and when it came to finals and semi-finals, we brought our game up and won,” she said.

This East York squad persevered despite a tougher schedule. At the OBA tournament, the third-seeded East Yorkers lost once, a three-point upset to seven-seeded Caswell Cyrus — the eventual gold medallists. The squad picked themselves up, and ran the table, beating Caledon’s club 43–28 in the bronze medal game.

“They watched out for each other,” Ganogiannis-Reid said. “We could be hard on each other, but our bottom line, at the end, whether we won or lost, everyone padded each other on the back.

“And they would forget about it. ‘Where do we eat?’ It’s so cute.”