St. Mary School’s Jenna Schwarz drives to the hoop during the Romes’ Classic Jan. 11 at the Rotary Spirit Centre. The senior girls finished second, falling 54-51 to Thorsby in the Jan. 12 final.
St. Mary School’s senior girls earned silver, while the boys came up just short of a medal at the fourth annual Romes’ Classic, a tournament conceived by boys coach Darcy Romanuik.
The event, held at the Rotary Spirit Centre Jan. 11-12, featured 19 1A teams — 11 boys teams and eight girls teams from as far away as Jasper.
It was a busy weekend for Romanuik who not only coached his team, but organized the event and refereed.
“I was really happy in pulling it off. It’s a bigger tournament than any of the provincial playdowns ... That’s schools staying over night in Westlock, so I think it helps the economy and it was good for our school to see the variety,” he said.
Romanuik created the event four years ago to help give St. Mary teams a chance to see their zone competitors before facing them in zones.
Because St. Mary is relatively isolated from other 1A schools it’s difficult to organize league games due to distances.
“For example, we’re not going to go to Jasper on a Tuesday night. You don’t get a chance to see other schools or play other schools, so four years ago I created the tournament because Westlock is central in the zone, plus having the Spirit Centre as a facility, we can pull something like this off,” said Romanuik.
On the court, the girls dominated in their first two games, beating up on Hinton 58-17 and Kinuso 64-30 before heading into the final against Thorsby Saturday night.
The Sharks started out sluggish, scoring only three points in the first quarter, but came back to tie the game in the second and then traded baskets with Thorsby for the rest of the game, coming up just short in the end, 54-51.
“They played fantastic. It was a tough loss in the finals for sure, but it always is when the score is so close,” said coach Keiley Sankey.
She noted the team is relatively small with four rookies, but they have a lot of heart.
“They play well as a team and I’ve seen much improvement since our last tournament. Although we still struggle with rebounding, I think we’re going to have an amazing season,” said Sankey.
The boys on the other hand started off on a high note, beating Holy Trinity Academy from Drayton Valley 73-58 Friday.
But things went south Saturday as the club fell to Breton 70-50. In the bronze-medal game the boys dropped a 76-59 decision to Hinton.
“We came in as a No. 4 seed and that’s essentially where we finished,” said Romanuik.
“We still haven’t figured out a way to play 40 minutes and that’s on me. I definitely don’t think we got outworked, however, we were out-skilled.”
Next on the agenda for the boys, after a break for final exams, is a tournament in Camrose at the end of the month then another tournament at home in February.
“Now we know what we have to work on, there’s still two months left in the season,” said Romanuik.
