Boys win over Oilfields

Times Reporter   

 

Having lost to Holy Trinity Academy 78-40 in their home opener on Dec. 11, the Strathmore High School Spartans redeemed themselves in a 55-51 victory over Oilfields High School boys’ basketball team five days later.

“Well, we were actually leading at some points by 12 to 14 points,” said Spartan coach, Ken Smith. “It was a close game, they’re a really hard team — a good team to play against. It just came down to us not turning over the ball as much.”

Smith and his squad had roughly 30 turnovers in their game against Holy Trinity Academy.

“That’s 60 points,” Smith said. “That’s the difference. Our main focus is taking care of the ball. We met that goal — being more responsible. As you can tell, it didn’t boost our score up, we only had 55 points, but what it did do was it limited the other team’s score.”

Throughout the game, Oilfields never took the lead from the Spartans, only coming within a few points towards the end of the fourth quarter. The momentum from the victory will be hard to carry into the new year.

“It’s a tough season. I don’t particularly like it because you get no continuity. It goes until March but you have all these breaks in between. When we come back from Christmas, it’s pretty much like starting over from scratch again. Everyone gets lazy and forgets what we’re doing,” Smith said. “We have a young team and I can’t give them too much to focus on at once.”

The varsity boys return to action Jan. 8, visiting Foothills Composite High School.

The varsity girls under the tutelage of Dion Galandy never had the opportunity to play their second game of the season, against Highwood High School, due to poor weather on Dec. 18. The game has been rescheduled to Jan. 15, after the girls join the boys against Foothills Composite on a week earlier.

Galandy and the girl Spartans have not seen Foothills yet in this season’s exhibition tournament action.

“It’ll be a challenge for us. It should be a good game,” Galandy said. “I don’t know whether we’ll be on the winning end or the losing end, but it’ll be a good game.”

The varsity girls maintain a different schedule than the boys over the Christmas break.

“We often do individual practices over the holidays when kids can come out,” Galandy said. “We keep doing a little bit.”

The girls are also planning for a mini-tournament in Chestermere from Jan. 3-4, against a team from Idaho, before school begins on Jan. 6.