Spartan basketball competes in Camrose

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

The Strathmore High School Spartans basketball programs didn’t come home empty handed from the Boston Pizza Classic tournament last weekend in Camrose.
The senior girls program opened the tourney with a pair of losses, but salvaged the weekend with a 50-32 victory over the Lloydminster Comprehensive High School Barons Dec. 9.
Senior Allie Davidson led the Spartans with 19 points on 6-of-21 shooting, that included a pair of threes and three steals.
“We definitely took one step forward in that last game. We came together a little bit and looked better offensively,” said Spartans Head Coach Kyle Larson. “The better ball movement and attacking of the basket opened up our offence. We had our shooters catching passes in better spots on the floor to shoot the ball.”
The Spartans struggled in the tourney opener, losing 60-32 to the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic School Spartans Dec. 8 at the École Camrose Composite High School.
Held to single figures in each quarter, Kaylin Larson led the charge by canning three triples and hitting one from the floor for nine points. Sydney Boyd wasn’t seeing her shots fall, only going 2-for-20 from the floor, but got to the free throw line eight times.
“It’s not so much a new team this year, but we are asking the girls to do different things. We have a lot of growing to do before the end of January and things we want to tweak as we head in the right direction,” said coach Larson.
In the Spartans second game of the weekend, the Brooks Composite High School Buffalos downed the Spartans 68-49 the morning of Dec. 9.
Kaylin Larson led the way once again with 20 points, as she hoisted up 21 three-point attempts, connecting on five of them. Jaidyn Eitzen and Davidson were second on the team with eight points each. Eitzen also picked up one block on the other end.
The Spartans will continue their tournament play starting Dec. 14, when they participate in the McDonald’s Bert Church Invitational Tournament Dec. 14-16 at the Bert Church High School in Airdrie.
The Spartan senior boys squad realized the hard way last weekend that they needed to take advantage of the five personal fouls each player starts the game with.
In the Boston Pizza Classic tourney opener Dec. 8, the Spartans were whacked 106-45 by the defending provincial champion St. Peter the Apostle Catholic School Spartans. Desmond Strangling Wolf led the charge with 12 points. Not too far behind him was Garrett Kopp with 11 points and four rebounds.
After getting blown out in the opener, the Strathmore boys sat down in a team meeting afterwards and came to an agreement that they needed to be more physical with the other team.
“We knew St. Peter was going to be a strong team — they’re the defending provincial champions. We decided that we didn’t want to let it be too easy for teams and start using our fouls,” said Spartans Head Coach Matt Laslo.
In the Spartans second game of the tournament, they cut an early deficit down to three points, when Ryan Edwards and Josh Filipionek took the new fouling strategy to heart and fouled out minutes apart. They couldn’t hang on in the end, falling 89-68 to the Wetaskiwin Composite High School Sabres.
Everything came together – the offence and the hard-nosed defence – in the tourney finale, as the Spartans picked up their first win of the season when they nearly doubled the Crescent Heights High School Vikings 97-48 on the strength of a tourney-high 31 points from newcomer Reid Jensen, 21 points from Daniel Mulder and 10 points from Ryan Mulder.
“We just realized we needed to work harder. After we got that out of the way it was a much better showing,” said Laslo.
Laslo’s Spartans are at the McDonald’s Bert Church Invitational Dec. 14-16, playing one game per day.