The St. Mary Sharks girls claimed the consolation championship at their own tournament at the Rotary Spirit Centre Feb. 25 after defeating Redwater and Barrhead Composite's JV team.
The St. Mary Sharks girls claimed the consolation championship at their own tournament at the Rotary Spirit Centre Feb. 25 after defeating Redwater and Barrhead Composite's JV team.
The squad will now head back to the practice court in preparation for the upcoming zone tournament set to go down in less than two weeks.
'It was a great tournament," said girls head coach Glenn Schwarz. 'The girls played well."
The girls were forced into the consolation round after losing a match with Rimbey, who went on to win the gold after defeating Hay Lakes.
'Rimbey's an honourable mention in provincial rankings for a 2A school," said Schwarz. 'They're a very good team. We were with them all the way fourth quarter but our girls got tired and they took over. They've got a big bench."
Schwarz noted that while the Sharks would have liked to walk away with the gold, they were happy to take a good bite out of Redwater.
'Redwater is in our zone, so we wanted to make sure we want that game for zone rankings," he added. 'We didn't shoot very good in the first half, but we came together in the second and pulled out the win."
Schwarz noted he wanted to work on his team's offensive possession, but he was quite happy with the Shark's defence.
'Our defence has been very good lately," said Schwarz.
'The girls have really accepted the 3-2 zone and have worked on it a lot. We did really well against a 2A school. We held Rimbey to eight points at halftime, if we could have kept our stamina up we could have given them a run for a point."
The St. Mary tournament comes on the heels of a home-court blowout Feb. 22 as both the boys and girls took the Barrhead Composite High School JV Gryphons to the boards, with the girls devouring their opponents 72-27 and the boys winning 70-40.
'It was a good physical game," said boys head coach Darcy Romanuik.
'It was the kind of game you want the guys to get involved in but you don't want anyone to get hurt. It was a good team building game and everyone chipped in."
He commended his pack for not being intimidated by the Gryphon's size and aggression.
'We didn't back down," he added. 'Our rebounding was something I wasn't too happy with, but I was happy with our system and team play. Our intensity was there, our effort was there."
The Sharks are now preparing for zones, though Romanuik said he was waiting to hear from a few teams about a possible extra game or two before the Sharks take the plunge.
'We may have an exhibition game, or possibly a conference game. I'm just waiting to hear back from the guy who would be putting it on. But that may be it until zones."
