The Edwin Parr Composite (EPC) Predators boys and girls senior basketball teams competed in zones this past weekend with the boys coming up short in the bronze medal game and the girls missing out on the gold medal by two points.
The senior boys hosted zones and won their first game over Morinville 49-35 to take a spot on the A side. Their second game was against the top-ranked Barrhead team. Barrhead would end up taking the game by nearly 20 points, sending EPC to the bronze medal game.
“It’s a team I don’t mind losing to,” said head coach Mark Francis of the Barrhead Gryphons. “They’re classy and they play the game hard.”
The boys took on the Whitecourt Chargers for bronze. EPC led the game going into the half, but in the third quarter put up fewer than 10 points, which would prove to be their downfall. The Chargers won the game with a final score of 84-68.
“It was close. We would have liked to come out on the other end of the game,” Francis said. “All you ever hope for is good games, and we had one.”
The EPC boys were dealing with multiple injuries going into zones, and according to Francis, his team did its best to fill the gaps in the lineup.
“When you lose your go-to scorer and everyone else elevates their game, that’s all you can ask for as a coach,” he said.
The senior girls travelled to Barrhead for zones, where they played three nail-biters.
“All of our games were really, really close. It was a really exciting weekend,” said senior girls coach Wade Hicks. “We went in not really knowing anything about any of the teams we were playing.”
Friday night, they felled the Drayton Valley Amazons 43-37.
“We were up pretty much the whole game, but Drayton Valley didn’t go away,” said Hicks.
The scores would only get closer from there.
On Saturday, the Predators faced the Whitecourt Chargers in the semifinals for their closest game of the tournament.
“Whitecourt had a shot right at the buzzer. It went halfway down and popped back out,” said Hicks.
The Predators won by one point with a score of 36-35.
In the gold medal game, the Predators jumped out to an early lead, but the Morinville Wolves were soon nipping at their heels.
“Morinville was just kind of a scrappy, aggressive team. They kept hanging around and hanging around and ended up pulling it out in the end and beating us by two,” said Hicks of the game that ended 37-35 for Morinville.
Though Hicks conceded it was tough to lose zones by such a slim margin, he said he was proud of the season overall. With only a handful of girls returning from last year’s exceptionally strong team, this was a rebuilding season.
“You could have probably asked these girls a month ago if they thought we were going to do anything at zones, and they probably would have said no, not a chance.”
It was only in the last month or so that the girls became more consistent and competitive, he said, adding, “I thought overall we had a really impressive season.”
