The Sacred Heart Saints senior boys basketball team left Yorkton on Friday to take part in a two-day basketball tournament in Estevan.
They came back with the third place plaque, a 2-1 record and the knowledge that they can play with anyone.
Sacred opened the tournament with a high scoring 82-71 victory over the LeBoldus Golden Suns 'B' team. Carter Ruff and David Ojo led the way for the Saints as each player recorded a double double. Ruff did so while scoring a team high 26 points while collecting 12 rebounds while Ojo, fresh off of a lower body injury that had him sidelined for some time, scored 16 points and brought down 15 boards. Brody Kormos also put together quite the game, coming just one point short of a double double, scoring nine points while picking up 21 rebounds.
The win over LeBoldus sent the Saints to the semi-finals where they met the Balgonie Greenall Griffins. Despite another solid effort by Ruff (27 points, seven rebounds, 5-for-6 from beyond the arc) the Saints fell one basket short, dropping a heartbreaker to the Griffins 57-56.
The loss meant that the Saints now had to play the host Estevan Elecs in the third place game, not an easy task seeing as how the Elecs had home court advantage.
However the home town support that the Elecs had did not bother the Saints one bit as they got 18 points from Jaedon Pellatt and 16 from Ruff to handily defeat Estevan 58-41 and secure third place.
Although the 2-1 record and third place overall feels good, Saints head coach Garrett Karcha did notice some areas of his teams' game that could improve. "I feel like our defence wasn't as good in this last tournament as it has been," said Karcha, continuing, "I think maybe defensively we could make some improvements and adjustments and maybe add in an element of a press."
Karcha also pointed out how well both Ojo and Pellatt played all tournament long, proving that their injuries are a thing of the past. "David (Ojo) and Jaedon (Pellatt) both came back from their injuries. Jaedon was kind of limited in what he could do due to his injury but they did play and they played very well."
The Sacred Heart Saints senior boys basketball team will now take the next two weekends off in order to prepare themselves for the York City Classic, a tournament which they co-host with their rivals from the YRHS.
