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Busby and WES rule the hardwood

The gymnasium at Dapp School saw its fair share of action last week after an basketball tournament that saw six schools in friendly competition last Friday.
Dapp School’s Hailey Verbeek (left) and Busby School’s Caitlyn Potts compete for a rebound during the Elementary School Basketball Tournament at Dapp School last Friday. The
Dapp School’s Hailey Verbeek (left) and Busby School’s Caitlyn Potts compete for a rebound during the Elementary School Basketball Tournament at Dapp School last Friday. The Busby girls and the Westlock Elementary School boys won gold.

The gymnasium at Dapp School saw its fair share of action last week after an basketball tournament that saw six schools in friendly competition last Friday.

Busby’s girls beat Dapp in the gold-medal game while Westlock Elementary School’s boys came out on top over Busby. Regardless of the colour of the medal the teams took home, though, it was more about having a good time.

“We’re just happy to have kids come out, have fun and play sports,” said Daryl Chattargoon, a Dapp teacher who organized the tournament.

The event marks the end of the elementary-school basketball season in an informal league made up of Pembina Hills schools in the Westlock area: Busby, Dapp, Dunstable, Eleanor Hall, Westlock Elementary and W.R. Frose.

Busby teacher Rick Mueller, who helped to start the league about 20 years ago when he was working in Dapp, said he’s happy that kids in the Westlock area get this opportunity to take part in some organized school sports at a young age.

“The neat thing with this is that not only does it develop them for junior high, but half of these kids may never play on a team ever again,” he said.

As part of the league, which includes soccer, volleyball and basketball every year, Mueller said they’ve developed fair-play rules to make sure that regardless of skill, nobody gets cut from a team and everybody gets the same amount of time on the court.

“They’ve had a chance to be part of a team, and maybe even win a championship,” he said.

“They’ll always have those medals.”

The season is structured so that over the course of the sport’s season, the teams will play five or six regular season-type games before culminating in a day-long tournament.

Each year Busby hosts the soccer tournament, Westlock hosts volleyball and Dapp hosts basketball.

While the level of competition is not exceedingly high, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some impressive moves out on the court — many of the players will undoubtedly continue to impress at the junior-high and high-school levels.

“I grew up in the city, and I don’t remember kids playing this well in Grade 5 or 6,” Chattargoon said.

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