SHS basketball finishes fourth in provincial tournament

Posted on: Staff Writer

From edition: March 25 2022 Strathmore Times

By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter

The Strathmore Spartans senior high school boys basketball team hosted the ASAA 3A Boys Basketball Provincial Championship March 17-19 at SHS. The Spartans went neck and neck with the eventual champs from Cochrane and lost in double overtime in the third place showdown with Camrose to cap off a fantastic weekend of action.

Joe Lepage Photo

Strathmore High School’s basketball team has finished fourth in the province at the conclusion of the provincial tournament hosted in Strathmore last weekend.

Coach Matt Laslo said the season overall went well for his team, coming into the tournament as the fifth place seed and finishing their final game in a tight bid for the podium.

“It was really successful, there was lots of positive feedback form coaches. It’s nice to always have teams coming from all over the province to battle it out for the provincial championship,” said Laslo. “We lost in our third place game in double overtime by three points. (The boys) were pretty good about it – you end up in those games where it’s double overtime, everybody’s legs are pretty gone by that point and you’re just trying to stay in it.”

Laslo said his team did exceptionally well, especially being, on average, notably younger than many other rosters competing. 

He added that overall, there are roughly 67 3A teams in the province that competed. With that being said, there is always room for improvement and further development for the team.

“I think for us, it’s just even a little bit of maturity. We were (by far) the youngest team in the tournament, we have three Grade 10’s who play pretty regular minutes for us,” said Laslo. “A person can never tell the future but as long as we keep working as hard as we have all year and the boys keep putting in that kind of time and effort into their game over the summer, I’m not worried.”

Throughout the season, the team maintained an impressive record of three first place finishes in tournaments, two second place finishes and placing third in the South Central Zone tournament.

“I think that we’ve probably had one of the more successful high school seasons that we’ve ever had here at Strathmore High School,” explained Laslo, adding that the South Central zone boasts many of the regularly strongest teams in Alberta, at the high school level.