Cynthia Bramham is losing her seniority but she still has her eye on the prize -a starting position with the Olds College Broncos.
Broncos coach Greg Lendvay offered Bramham an athletic scholarship to the Olds, Alta. school following a tryout over the Easter long weekend, which the Estevan Elecs post gladly accepted.
"He told me I'd be 10th, 11th, or 12th (on the depth chart) and he said 'How do you feel about that?'" Bramham, one of two seniors on Estevan's high school girls' basketball team this past season, said Monday.
"I said 'Well, I'll just have to push myself even harder to get up there into seventh, sixth, or maybe even fifth.'"
Bramham knows a thing or two about expecting the unexpected.
This year's Elecs were one of the youngest 4A teams in Saskatchewan yet were ranked seventh in the province entering regionals.
Estevan Comprehensive School was also not given much of a chance, even by some of those associated with ECS, to win snap Weyburn's 25-year winning streak in the McLeod Series. But the girls again came through, building a lead in their two games that gave the ECS boys a legitimate chance to win in the four-game total-points series finale.
As the team evolved into a contender, so did Bramham.
"Althought my Grade 10 posts improved a lot this year, so did Cynthia," said Elecs head coach Jessie Elias. "She learned some new post moves down low, which helped her during the season. She also learned to look for her outside shot a lot more during the game and not to depend on her post skills inside the key.
"She worked on finishing and driving to the basket, which is hard to ask of a post since their dribbling skills are lacking due to being two feet under the basket."
Bramham first met with Lendvay at a camp last summer. She said part of what sold her on Olds was the similarities she saw between Lendvay and Elias, who was admittedly "very hard" on her seniors this year.
"[Lendvay] was so intense and I knew I wanted to play for him after that," said Bramham.
Olds won the Alberta Colleges Athletic League women's basketball championship after posting a 9-1 regular-season win-loss record.
The ACAL basketball season begins in January.
