Westlock’s R.F. Staples Thunderbirds senior girls basketball team overcame a bumpy start to earn the consolation title at a tournament in Morinville last weekend.
Coach Rod Carlyon said Saturday’s 51-23 win over Drayton Valley was a really good team effort — Drayton Valley had a short bench at the tournament, and the T-Birds were able to rotate through all the players to maintain an advantage.
“They have some really strong players, but they don’t have a very deep bench,” he said. “We got out to a small lead, and were able to use all the bench and we were able to pull away.”
There was a bit of a challenge going into the tournament, however, as the girls hadn’t played together in three weeks and were still getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas holidays.
It didn’t help that the T-Birds faced Morinville first thing on Friday — that team proved to be a big challenge for the girls, who ultimately dropped that match 56-24.
“There’s no doubt about it, they’re just a well-balanced and well-coached team,” Carlyon said.
Friday evening the girls faced Ponoka, a team from outside the zone, so they weren’t too sure what to expect.
“We’d seen them play and I thought we’d have a pretty good game against them. We matched up well,” Carlyon said.
It turns out that was the case, as the result of the close match was a tight 43-31 victory.
“It was one of those game where we were ahead pretty well the whole game, then we had a lapse in the third quarters so they kind of brought it back,” he said.
Carlyon noted that although Westlock’s team is consistently the youngest in any tournament they play — there is only one Grade 12 student on the team — they continue to put up strong performances.
In particular at this tournament, he said a few players excelled: Kari Sauve has a consistently strong performance the whole weekend, Sydney Toma sunk an impressive 16 points during the game against Drayton Valley and Tori Wiese kept finding the basket right when the team needed it the most.
The girls won’t get much of a rest before their next action, which is this weekend in Edson.
