Cougars have golden touch

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Crowther Memorial Junior High School Cougars Grade 8 boys basketball team have used their size to their advantage in two tournaments, earning them two gold medal finishes with the latest coming in Brooks last weekend.
Head coach Matthew Laslo mentioned that you don’t know what to expect at this level as far as competition goes, and said they didn’t have a great game in the first one and managed to still win it, while they had a great game the next morning to get into the finals.
“We ended up playing Rosemary in the final,” said Laslo. “They’re a good team. They had a couple really good players and for the most part we were able to shut down their good players and scored when we needed to. Our big guys were scoring baskets.”
He added what factored into the win was the experienced players from last season who are committed to working really hard.
“They play for each other,” said Laslo. “They work really hard in practice and when you work hard in practice it usually goes through to the results in the game. Coaching gives them some skills, but mostly it’s the players.”
Laslo’s Grade 9 team was in Calgary at the Rundle tournament last weekend as well, where they picked up the consolation prize in what was an entertaining clash against Branton School.
“It was an amazing game,” said Laslo. “We were up 17 points at one point and the boys played really well and pulled it out as a team. We only won by one point, we were up four points with 30 seconds left and the kid off of Branton ran down and canned the three-pointer with eight seconds to go. It was a one-point game and we fought through the pressure and held on to the ball and luckily came out with a victory.”
So far this season the Grade 7 and 8 teams are undefeated and the Grade 9’s are playing .500 basketball. Laslo thinks all the teams are competitive for their levels.