Last Thursday night the Yorkdale Royals did something that not many Yorkton elementary schools have been able to do: they won both the boys’ and girls’ Yorkton Elementary School Sports Association (YESSA) basketball championships.
First up was the Yorkdale Royals girls’ team, who put the cherry on top of their outstanding season in the early final game, easily defeating the M.C. Knoll Knights 73-6 to win their fourth consecutive YESSA girls’ basketball title.
But what makes the victory even more impressive is the fact that the Yorkdale girls’ team has continually won with a completely different set of girls each and every time. “Each and every single championship we’ve won has been really special because it’s with a different set of girls,” offered Yorkdale’s head coach Jason Boyda, before adding that this particular group of girls was different than the rest. “These girls are really special to us because they came out when they were in grade six. They’re a fun group to work with. They set the bar high for the other girls that are coming up to keep the tradition going.
“They’ve built a great legacy with winning this championship and beating high school teams and now we’ve got other girls that are going to look up to it and hopefully fill their shoes and keep the Royal tradition of winning going.”
The Yorkdale boys, not wanting to be shown up by their female counterparts, also managed to bring a championship back to Royal Nation on Thursday.
But unlike the girls’ team, they didn’t have as easy of a time as the St. Michael’s Stars gave them all they could handle in the first half, even jumping out to an early 6-0 lead to open the game.
However the Royals managed to battle back in the final 10 minutes of the first half to take a 21-15 lead into the break; a lead they would only build on in the second half en route to a 44-25 YESSA city championship victory. “Hats off to St. Mike’s because they were well prepared. Their coach did a great job, their players played really hard for him,” offered Boyda following the game. “They utilized their height, their size, their speed, their strength. They had us on the ropes and they scored the first six points and we had to make an adjustment during one of our early timeouts.
“But that’s when our basketball IQ came out. Our boys were able to adjust on the fly and shut down their high posts with their big players there.”
The championship is just the second title for the Yorkdale boys in recent memory, despite making five straight trips to the City Championship game.
