They left everything on the court, but the St. Mary Sharks fell short of the gold medal at the Cathy Mitchell Memorial Senior Girls Basketball Tournament at the Rotary Spirit Centre on Feb. 23-24.
In the Saturday-night final, the girls dropped a tight 58-51 decision to the provincially-ranked Hay Lakes Tigers.
“Hay Lakes is a really good team — they’re ranked in the Top 15 of the province,” said coach Glen Schwarz.
“We didn’t expect to give them as good of a run as we did. We knew they were going to come out for a press and we should have been ready for it.
“My girls turned the ball over a few times and by the middle of the third quarter we were down 14 points.”
In the round robin portion of the two-day event, the Sharks lost to Daysland 41-38, but defeated Millwoods Christian 66-35.
Schwarz said the girls really dug down deep in the final and nearly scored an improbable upset.
“I really have to give my girls credit. They came back in the fourth quarter of the final and made that game really close,” he continued.
“To hold Hay Lakes to under 60 points and to score over 50 ourselves, if you could take anything from a loss, that was a good loss.”
With their home tournament now in the books, the Sharks will prepare for the 1A Alberta Athletic Association North Central Zone tournament, where they will be joined by the boys team at the Rotary Spirit Centre March 9-10.
The top 1A basketball teams from across the region will be at the event looking for a berth to the provincial championships.
Schwarz said he wants to focus on offence in the practices leading to the zone finals.
“Our defence is really good, we hold really good teams down to decent points, but we have to work on moving the ball and making sure we hit our shots,” he said.
“Zones are a one-and-done so if you lose one, that’s it.”
The Cathy Mitchell Memorial Tournament is named after a longtime St. Mary staffer who tragically died with her two sons in a house fire.
