Shannon Kennedy was a record breaking player at St. Clair College scoring 1,401 points between 2013-2018. She is now a head coach for the Windsor St. Clair Juel team and is helping young players score a post-secondary basketball opportunity. "I love it," Kennedy told Powerplay sports following a league game at the University of Windsor Saturday. "They do really take it seriously (the players), take losses like this personally."
Kennedy's team lost to a team from London in the opener of their three-game weekend in Windsor. The team travels out of town but once a year gets to host a weekend of games at the University of Windsor.
"It's a privilidge to play in a gym like this and in front of our friends and family is always a cool thing." said Kennedy who is joined on the bench by former Lancer Andrea Kiss.
Windsor St. Clair finished the weekend 2-1 thanks to wins over Brampton and Niagara and now have a 10-8 record overall. The team is comprised of primarily grade 11-12 high school students with a few grade 10's sprinkled in.
Yasmine Kadri is a standout from Holy Names playing in her first season of travel with the Juel team and has enjoyed squaring up against top level players from across the province. "London, I notice five girls from different schools we played at Holy Names but now they're all on one team." said Kadri who scored the game winning bucket during last year WECSSAA final against St. Joe's.
She is glad Kennedy reached out to her to try out as Kadri prepares for her final high school year this fall. "All these great defenders have challenged me and I think I've gotten better.
Kennedy says Juel was in its infancy when she played in high school. With one of her four seniors committed to playing post secondary, her hope is to give young players the same opportunities to succeed as she had going through her basketball career.
"We have one that signed for track. It's more than basketball. If we can get you to the next level helping you academically, we try to teach them more lessons off the court then that translate on the court. At the end of the day it is just a game and it's important to learn other lessons along with it."