Although the final game of this year’s Regional High School invitational basketball tournament started off close on the girls’ side, it would be the home team Saints that would steadily pull away, and become champions with a convincing score of 72-30.
Overall, it was a great tournament, according to both the boys’ and the girls’ coaches. The tournament saw a few local teams take part in the competition, while others travelled in from outside the area.
For the girls, it was a strong practice on Thursday that led into a strong weekend showing.
“Every game was basically that kind of score,” said coach Trent Rowley, when speaking after Saturday’s final game.
On Friday, the Saints opened the tournament with a game against Lac La Biche, winning by a score of 56-15. Then, the Saints met up with the Elk Point girls on Saturday morning, again winning, and securing themselves a spot in the finals against Westwood out of Fort McMurray.
This year’s girls’ basketball team includes about seven new girls, but Rowley’s confidence in his team is obvious. Even in the final game of the tournament, the coach was able to play some of his youngest players, while holding the lead.
Rowley credits the team’s success on its ability to focus on playing defense.
“We just played defense. Everybody can score. Everybody can make a basket. But you have to work hard to play D.”
He adds that having a full roster, with more than just a handful of players to rely on, is also crucial. Rowley says he’s noticed that some teams are physically beat down after playing the Saints, because they are able to keep the intensity going the whole game, while relying on at least a dozen solid players.
Boys
Although the boys didn’t claim the top spot on their end, the team still managed to grab enough wins to take third place overall in the weekend tournament.
The boys opened the tournament on Friday with a game against Elk Point, winning 76-52. The win set up a game against Lac La Biche, to determine who would head into the finals.
But, Lac La Biche would prove to be the stronger team, and would move on to play the Westwood boys in the finals, sending the Saints to the third place game against JR Robson out of Vermilion.
“We had our ups and downs,” said coach Jorge Silva. Although winning bronze was a good finish, he admits the boys’ team has “lots to learn” this season.
This year’s basketball season will be a long one, with some big tournaments coming up, but Silva is confident that he has a good group of athletes to rely on.
Mainly, the boys will focus on “Just working together as a team and growing,” said the coach. Silva adds that this year, there were 25 boys interested in playing basketball, which means that there will be a Lakeland team and a SPAA team competing throughout the area.
The SPAA team will stay closer to home, competing against other teams in the St. Paul Athletics Association, while the Lakeland team will hit the road and compete against teams in communities such as Cold Lake and Vermilion.
Silva says having over 20 athletes who want to play basketball is really good to see.
The Clash of the Saints fundraiser will take place on Dec. 16 at Regional, and will feature both the boys’ and girls’ teams from the high school participating in a couple of fun, yet surely competitive, games throughout the evening.
First, the girls will take on a team made up of staff from the high school, with that game set to begin at 5:30 p.m. Then, the boys will matchup against a team of alumni players from Regional.
Along with an entrance fee, non-perishable food items are also being collected at the event, to be donated to the St. Paul Food Bank.
