A dozen basketball teams will be shooting for gold at the home of the Falcons this weekend.
And for the host Foothills Composite Falcons, the opportunity to play in their own gymnasium at the Sheep River Shootout will be something of a novelty and an experience to savour with 12 of the top senior girls basketball squads at the Comp and Meadow Ridge gymnasiums on Jan. 27-28.
“It means a lot to me,” said Grade 12 Falcon Adison Lybbert. “Because I finally get to play in my home gym and show everybody at home what I’ve got and it’s a chance for the team to show what they’ve got, and we’re excited to represent the community.”
Foothills, which does not compete in the Foothills Athletic Council league, has been held to just one exhibition home contest on its home court this season.
“We have some momentum coming back to our home gym and we’re excited to play in front of Okotoks and in front of familiar faces,” said Falcons head coach Jordan Britton. “I know the girls are really excited to get that opportunity.”
The Falcons got back into the swing of things with a consolation title at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute’s invitational earlier this month, edging out the Holy Trinity Academy Knights in the final.
“Getting onto the court after the Christmas break, I expected the girls to need time to get back into the flow,” Britton said. “But they were awesome in getting right back to work and it’s business as usual.”
Foothills has shown well in tournament action in the early stages of the campaign, highlighted by a title at the All Saints Legends event and silver amidst a stacked field at the St. Francis Xavier Mike Dea Basketball Classic.
“We’ve learned as a team not to take any team for granted,” said Lybbert. “If we don’t bring our A-game we can lose, but when we come together as a team, we’re really, really strong.
“When we’re mentally prepared, we’ve been able to see that nobody can stop us.”
Foothills will open its tournament against the McCoy Colts on Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. The winner moves on to play Centennial, one of four teams with byes through the first round of proceedings.
“We’ve really focused on our defence this year and with good defence comes great offence,” Lybbert said. “When we’re playing really good defence, our shots start going in and I think our main building block has been the defence and it’s been working a lot.”
The Knights are also part of the field and will tip-off their tournament action at 1 p.m. over at the Meadow Ridge gymnasium versus Magrath.
The other teams in the field include St. Mary’s, St. Francis, Paul Kane, Mount Baker, Swift Current, Medicine Hat High and Notre Dame.
The 12-team tournament will see semifinals at noon on Jan. 28 with the bronze medal match at 5:15 p.m. and gold medal final at 7 p.m.
“If we work hard, we trust that the work we’ve done up until tip-off has been excellent,” Britton said. “As long as we work hard for 40 minutes, we know that we’re going to be in a good place at the end of the game no matter who we’re matched up against.
“We look to get better and the reality is a lot of these teams are some of the better 4A teams in the province, but we have a good shot and we love our odds in any game that we play.”
