The season opening 1A Boys Basketball Tournament in Rockglen featured eight teams from southern Sask. –Rockglen, Assiniboia, Fillmore, Herbert, Coronach, Gravelbourg, Mortlach, and Davidson.
Rockglen has a very young and inexperienced team made up of six Grade 10s, two Grade 11s and one Grade 12 player.
As a result, we will have a rough year in the win-loss column but our goals are to steadily improve and play our best games at the end of the season.
Rockglen played Mortlach in the first game and won 56 – 31. On Saturday, we played our second game against Fillmore-one of the true provincial medal favourites for this year.
Their team speed and rebounding ability was matched early on by the Raiders and the score at end of the 1st quarter was 14 – 10 Fillmore.
The second and third quarters were all Fillmore as the used a run and gun offence to take huge lead. The fourth quarter was almost a dead heat 12 – 11 for Fillmore. The final score was Fillmore 80 – Rockglen 32. This set up a much anticipated third place game against Coronach.
The game was close for three of the four quarters but in the third the Colts surged ahead by a score of 48 – 30. The Raiders rallied in the fourth but fell short. The quarter scores were:
1st 10 – 5 Coronach; 2nd 12 – 10 Coronach; 3rd 26 – 15 Coronach; 4th 13 – 9 Rockglen.
Final Score Coronach 56 – Rockglen 41
The entire game was intense and exciting, but was a bit scrambly showing the inexperience of the Rockglen team.
Of course, there was the added entertainment of watching a husband versus wife coaching duel in addition to the teams playing the game.
In the end, Coronach was the better team of the day and deserve congratulations on their third place finish.
The Raiders from Rockglen look forward to another game, soon after the Christmas break.
Assiniboia won the consolation side beating Davidson out for a fourth place in the tournament.
The tournament championship final was played between two great teams – Fillmore and Herbert. Both teams have size, experience and speed but in the end it was an intense defensive battle.
With 2.2 seconds remaining on the clock the score was tied 38 – 38. A Fillmore guard stole the ball – shot - missed –got his own rebound and then scored with 00.0 seconds on the game clock - an outstanding finish to a game between two excellent teams.
Submitted by Marc Spagrud, Coach of the Rockglen Raiders
