Crowther wraps up its basketball season

Times Reporter

 

The Crowther Memorial Junior High (CMJHS) basketball teams had a good season this year. Each team worked hard to improve their skills and finish off as strong as they could by the end of the season.  

The senior girls team once again won gold at zones, bringing home the banner for the second year in a row. In the eight tournaments in which the girls competed in, they brought home four gold medals, three silvers and a bronze. 

“We had a really close team, they got along really well, it was kind of very like a family atmosphere,” said coach Scott Koller, about why he thinks the girls meshed so well. 

“They worked hard on practice and all the stuff we needed to fix we usually fixed it in practice. Our last game we shot 40 per cent, which is huge, that’s like college level shooting. If you can shoot 35 per cent you’re doing good and we went 40 per cent, it’s pretty impressive.

“Our two captains were kind of the leaders, Erin Warrick and Karly Larson, they kind of set the tone for everything. They kept everyone together.”

Both of the captains were nominated for Alberta Shooting Stars, a program in Chestermere, which is similar to a province-wide All Star weekend. Normally the team is a mix of different grade levels, but this year all of the girls were in Grade 9 and will be moving on. 

“It was a really fun year, great group of girls, the last two years I’ve had a lot of fun. The high school team will be good next year I think. They’ll have a lot of good players. I’ll miss them, it feels like my kids are moving away,” said Koller. 

After a bit of a slow start to the season the senior boys team were able to pull off a second place finish at zones. 

“It was really good. We started out a little slow but we really picked it at the end. We had our best tournament of the season at the very end,” said assistant coach Matt Laslo.

The boys beat the top seeded team John Paul out of Okotoks in the semi-finals but lost to Olds in the finals. 

“It was a very successful season, we had a lot of talented players, a lot of people that really worked hard. Beating John Paul was definitely a highlight,” said Laslo.

“Tyis YellowHorn had a very strong tournament and he probably led the whole tournament in scoring. We had a really good team this year, it was nice for the boys to go from where we were losing out every first round of the season to finishing second.”

Laslo said the Grade 7 players look really good and feels there are solid prospects coming from them. 

MarNai YellowHorn and her husband Shay can be thanked for helping the JV boys expand on their skills.

“It was good to see them progress throughout the year. I wish we had a tournament actually at the end of the season, because they improved so much that it would have been nice to see how they did again against some of the teams,” said MarNai YellowHorn. 

There were 15 boys on the team, and in her three years of coaching the boys, this was the first year they have played in tournaments. The boys won a game every single tournament, though they didn’t place. YellowHorn said it was really good to see the boys win a few games because most of them didn’t know a lot about basketball in the beginning. 

The last game of the season for the boys was against Standard. The first time the two teams had been matched up, Standard had walked away with a victory, but in the final game CMJHS won.

“It was a great way to end the season, even though it was just exhibition, but the boys loved the games. It’s not enough to just practice, kids always get up for games and get pumped up for games, it was a good win for them,” said YellowHorn. 

The JV girls also improved their game a lot this past season and coach Scott Sackett thinks they have a bright future in basketball. 

“One thing that was really good was they did a shared practice every couple of weeks, the senior and junior girls teams practiced together parts of the time, and then they had separate practice as well. That was something that was new this year that was really good,” said Sackett. 

The two players who stood out the most for him were Elizabeth Bechtold and Madelaine Fisk.

“In the games they both have a really good sense of what’s happening, or what’s going to happen, like being in the right place at the right time,” said Sackett.

“My hope for next year is a good Grade 7 team again, and because it was such a big Grade 9 senior team this year it’s big turnover, so pretty much it will be a brand new junior varsity team and so I hope the girls I have this year will be good at kind of mentoring the girls next year for junior varsity.”

All four of the teams had ups and downs this season, and the coaches are all looking forward to what next year will bring.