WESTLOCK — The St. Mary School (SMS) Sharks senior girls and boys basketball teams continue to battle through a mixed bag of success on the courts this season.
Senior boys coach Ty Snell said he’s proud of his team’s effort so far and, despite a couple of injuries, likes the progress they have made since the season began in early December.
Tournaments in Breton in December and the R.F. Staples invitational in January saw the boys lose the consolation final in both, but Snell said they still “showed a lot of improvement.”
They also competed in the 39th annual W.J. Kallal Memorial Tournament on Jan. 26-27, where they finished in fourth place overall after facing some tough competition.
“This year we had some much stronger competition attend … Fourth (place) is not where you want to end up but all things considered we played really good against some really big high schools so we’re pretty happy with the result,” said Snell.
“It’s a tournament that our school’s hosted for a really long time in honour of W.J. Kallal and Cathy Mitchell who are two really big supporters of our school so it’s nice to keep that tradition around.”
Just past the halfway mark of the season, Snell described some of the challenges facing the team this season.
“We’ve been playing some really good basketball, considering a couple of our starters have been injured for a few of our tournaments. So it’s always tough when you’re going into tournaments without starters and without guys that are more experienced with high school basketball,” he said. “So between injuries and playing against some of those bigger schools, we’ve been pretty happy with our progress so far.”
Incidentally, the senior girls team also participated in the 31st annual Cathy Mitchell Memorial Tournament the same weekend, where they went 0-3. Despite this result, the girls put in a strong effort, said coach Jared Stitsen.
“Moving forward, it’s a rebuilding year and they’re working hard,” said Stitsen, adding despite just the one tournament this season, they are working towards the upcoming zone ranking and zone championship tournaments. “(They’re) just working on their skills. We’ve been training all year and hoping to do the best we can,” said Stitsen.
Both teams practice twice a week and are preparing for the upcoming zones and provincial tournaments.
The boys have their last regular season tournament, the zone ranking tournament on Feb. 16-17, to prepare teams for Zone Championships on March 8-9 at the Rotary Spirit Centre. Snell said the boys won zones last year and went to provincials but know they still have some work ahead of them.
“It’s going to be a battle this year but we’re hopeful to win another one and head to provincials in Vegreville,” said Snell.
