Sarah Dillon grows from rookie to veteran

Sarah Dillon is growing into a new role with the women’s basketball team.

After spending most of the time last year as a bench player, the third-year guard for the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks has grown into a starting role. Dillon has averaged just over 22 minutes per game off the bench this season after averaging under 15 minutes in her last two seasons.

Dillon also doubled her points production, shooting 9.1 points per game against her previous 4.5 points per game in the 2014-15 season.

Over the weekend, Dillon was also in double-digits scoring, totaling 11 points against the Nipissing Lakers and 14 points versus the Laurentian Voyageurs.

The third-year guard shot an impressive 56 per cent from the field, and nailed three out of her five three point attempts.

Dillon is excited about growing into her new role with the team,

“It’s challenging because it’s completely new, but it’s exciting to see an increased role and how I can come in and help the team out in any way I can,” she said.

Dillon has become one of the go-to scoring options off the bench for the Hawks this year, sitting fourth on the team in both scoring, and field-goal percentage at 9.1 points per game and 43.6 per cent respectively.

She attributes much of her success to the learning process of playing behind upper-year veterans early on in her university career.

Dillon is continuing to work on improving her game with the help of these more experienced players.

“I was very fortunate to get to watch them and learn from them every day in practice and games,” she said.

Dillon also prides herself on a commitment to improving her skills during the offseason, as well as strengthening her mindset for the game by figuring out what she parts of her game are working when she applies them on the floor, and what she needs to get better at if she hopes to take her game to a higher level.

She prides herself on her work ethic and believes it’s a huge contributor to her success.

As mentioned, Dillon attributes much of her success to how she has grown as a player.

Now as a third-year with plenty of experience at the varsity level, Dillon hopes to give back to young first and second-year players.

“If I see something on the court I’ll help them out, converse with them,” she explained.

“I just think that it’s important as a veteran that you mentor the younger players, as I had with many of the players in my previous years.”

“I really hope I have a positive influence on the younger players coming up,” she continued.

With the team currently sitting with a record of 6-5, Dillon could be a big part of getting this team to build on the momentum of the two wins over the weekend on the way to reach that high calibre of basketball Laurier has become accustomed to in the last few seasons.

“I hope we carry a lot of the learning experiences that we did this weekend, and that momentum we get from the winning feeling,” Dillon explained.

“We have big games coming up against Windsor and Western, so I think those two big wins will help us contribute with everything we learned.”