They may not be as good as gold, but the R.F. Staples senior boys T-Birds turned in a performance at their home tournament that was good enough to be bronzed.
After a disappointing result at their most recent tournament in Whitecourt, coach Jon Hutchison said the team’s bronze medal performance at home on Saturday, Jan. 29 was a good result.
“It’s better than the last tournament,” said T-Birds player Marc Bouchard.
Hutchison added that Bouchard was speaking of the team’s last-place result at the Whitecourt tournament.
In order to come away with the bronze at home, the T-Birds needed to defeat the Lamont Lakers for the second time, as the teams had met in the tournament’s opening game.
The game started slowly for both clubs. At the end of the first half, the score was only 24-17 for the T-Birds.
However, the third quarter would prove to be the deciding point in the game.
The T-Birds flew out of the gate, scoring the first 16 points of the half. They refused to let up throughout the entire quarter, outscoring the Lakers 24-4 in the quarter, en route to a 48-21 lead after three quarters.
In the fourth, the T-Birds took their foot off the gas, allowing the Lakers to close the gap. But in the end the lead proved to be too much for Lamont to overcome.
Final score: T-Birds 56, Lakers 36.
A further analysis of the score yields the fact that, without the T-Birds’ third-quarter outburst, the game would have gone to overtime, tied at 32.
Doing most of the damage on the offensive side of the ball in the game was Jordan Blais, who nearly had a double-double, with 20 points and nine rebounds.
R.F. Staples’ second-leading scorer was Brendan Jensen, who tallied eight points of his own.
“Overall we have very balanced team scoring,” Hutchison said, adding that Blais just had a very good game.
In approaching the rematch with Lamont, Hutchison said the Lakers only had one strong player, and that to contain him is a difficult task.
In the first game of the tournament on Friday night, R.F. Staples and Lamont locked horns for the first time, with the T-Birds getting the better of their opponents 66-45.
This result set up a showdown between the T-Birds and J.A. Williams from Lac La Biche on Saturday morning. This game would prove to be an offensive affair, with the T-Birds falling 74-71.
“The score should have been in the hundreds,” Hutchison said of the Lac La Biche tilt. He added good defence on both sides kept the score as low as it was.
J.A. Williams advanced to the gold-medal game, where they met Barrhead Composite for the title. The game ended up being a rather one-sided affair, with Barrhead winning the gold medal by a convincing 93-37 score.
After the bronze-medal game, Bouchard said he felt the team played harder in the Lac La Biche game than they did in the Lamont rematch.
“It was definitely more competitive in the first game (on Saturday),” he said.
We were more tired in the second game because we worked so hard in the first.”
The team will return to action when it joins the girls at a tournament in Stony Plain on Feb. 4-5.
