It was a tough weekend for the Sacred Heart Saints senior boys鈥� basketball team.
The Saints made their way to Moose Jaw for a basketball tournament only to find out their first opponents were one of the top 5A teams in the province, the Prince Albert 鈥� St. Mary Marauders.
The Saints hung with the Marauders early on, trailing 33-20 after the first quarter; however one point in the second quarter saw the Saints trail 37-21 at the half.
A strong third quarter in which Sacred Heart scored 18 points had the Saints trailing 70-39 but unfortunately it wasn鈥檛 enough as St. Mary pulled away in the end to hand the Saints a 103-46 loss. Noah Clarke and Ethan Allan led the Saints with eight points each while Clarke also pulled down eight rebounds in the loss. 鈥淲e knew going in that it was going to be a tough game so I coached with realistic expectations in mind trying to limit them to certain things and try to do some things well, and believe it or not I was actually happy with the way we were able to move the ball around offensively,鈥� said Saints head coach Garrett Karcha. 鈥淲e got guys into the game and they played their bench, but it was a good experience for us because we got to play against arguably one of the top teams in the province.
鈥淚t was good to get some experience that way and it was kind of fun because it was one of those stress free games where we had nothing to lose.鈥�
The loss sent the Saints to the 鈥楤鈥� side where they met yet another 5A team, the North Battleford Vikings.
Once again Clarke led the way for the Saints, coming just one rebound away from a double-double scoring 15 points and hauling down nine rebounds.
Saints sharpshooter Jake Javier also had a good game. Javier had nine points, seven steals and six rebounds in the game.
The final game of the tournament saw the Saints take on last year鈥檚 4A Hoopla finalists Meadow Lake.
Sacred Heart put together a strong opening quarter to take a commanding 20-2 lead and never looked back, leading 37-11 at half before ultimately picking up the victory 60-45. Javier led the way with 17 points and eight steals while Noah Clarke (11 points, 15 rebounds) and Austin Walkington (11 points, 10 rebounds) both registered double-doubles.
While the win over Meadow Lake in the seventh/eighth place game doesn鈥檛 look all that important, coach Karcha said that because Meadow Lake is a 4A team the result actually carries some weight. 鈥淥ur goal going in there was that we knew we had to beat 4A schools, so we knew we had to win that last game because those games factor in for seeding come playoff time,鈥� suggested Karcha. 鈥淲e needed to put up a number against that team and get a win and the guys responded well. We took it to them early and we were able to kind of coast for the rest of the game and get some younger players in.鈥�
The next action for the Saints will be this weekend when they go to Melville for a two day tournament.
