WESTLOCK — The R.F. Staples Division 1 boys basketball team recently ended their season on March 1-2 with a bronze medal at the North Central 3J Boys Basketball Championship in Morinville.
The Division 1 boys’ team — which is comprised mostly of Grade 9 students and a few Grade 8s — started out the tournament against Edwin Parr Composite from Athabasca, who they defeated handily by a score of 76-22.
In the next round, they faced off with Barrhead Composite High School, but lost in a fairly close match.
While Barrhead went on to play in the final against Onoway, R.F. Staples went up against Edson (Parkland) in the bronze medal match and won by a fairly close score.
Coach Jessica Stevens said the boys played well all weekend, and in general they had shown a lot of growth this year.
“They had a really good season,” she said. “They medaled in a lot of tournaments – maybe not at first, but they got lots of medals throughout the season.”
Stevens added that the Division 1 players were a fun group of boys to coach, joking that because basketball is in competition with hockey and other sports, she never knew exactly what team was going to show up at each tournament or exactly which teams they would be facing.
For instance, "we beat Onoway two or three times, and they beat us by 20 one time because the right kids showed up,” she said.
Stevens said a lot of her players will be moving on to high school in the coming school year while she has some strong Grade 9s coming up, which bodes well for the future of the basketball program at R.F. Staples.
