As opening weeks go, the Falcons had one for the record books.
The Foothills Falcons senior basketball teams took out Western Canada in exhibition openers and carried that into tournament action with a pair of podium finishes at the St. Francis Xavier Mike Dea Classic highlighted by the girls bringing home the championship.
“We’ve had just an exceptional week,” said Amron Gwilliam, who’s coaching both the senior girls and boys teams for Foothills this season. “Western Canada finished third in the province last year, we then opened the tournament playing Jasper Place, they finished second last year, and we beat both of them.
“That really shows us where we can be. The girls are just off to a fantastic start.”
In the opener in Edmonton, Foothills’ defence paved the way to a 58-40 win over Jasper Place, setting up a semifinal showdown with the host Rams in which the visitors ran away with a 72-42 triumph.
“The St. FX team was not as talented as the other two teams we played on the weekend, but they definitely competed hard in front of their own fans,” Gwilliam said. “We didn’t have our best shooting game, but again our defence is leading the way right now and our offence hopefully will come.
“Also in the final, there was a pretty big crowd there and we get tons of parents and fan support, we have a lot of girls who have family up there so we had a nice crowd and some pretty loud fans were cheering us on all weekend.”
In the tournament final, the Falcons erased a seven-point deficit at the half to chase the Strathcona Lords by a 60-56 margin.
Foothills had 15 steals, 43 rebounds and shot 75 per cent from the charity stripe, holding Scona to just 19 second half points with only eight players available due to injuries and illness.
“Our eight girls that were there really stepped up, played a ton of minutes and just competed like crazy,” Gwilliam said.
The coach added that the core of returning players from last year’s zone championship team is an exceptional group that includes seniors Dior Sellars, Ella Watkins, Alexa Hayes and Addisyn Gwilliam along with Grade 11 standouts Savanah Sommerfeldt and Ashleigh Baker.
The team has also benefited from the addition of several players from a stellar Falcons JV squad that finished last season undefeated.
Watkins was named the tournament MVP.
“She’s exceptional at both ends of the floor and we often have her on the best player,” Gwilliam said. “She was close to our leading scorer in every game as well, she’s just playing awesome.”
In the boys division, the Falcons made waves in Edmonton as well with three wins and a bronze medal finish.
The Falcons rode a hot-start to an 87-69 win over the Lords in the third-place final.
Earlier in the competition, Foothills overpowered William Aberhart 95-47, soared past the Holy Trinity Trojans 83-52 and in the semifinal dropped an overtime decision 101-95 to Jasper Place.
“They’re a really big, strong, athletic team and just really quick and aggressive defensively,” Gwilliam said. “They took us out of our execution at times, we got down early, but our guys settled in quite nicely and by the end of the first quarter had actually taken the lead.”
Callen Sorensen, one of two tournament all-stars for Foothills along with Cache Perrett, hit a buzzer-beater three-pointer at the end of regulation to force the extra session.
“Callen played really well all weekend, very good on the defensive end, made a lot of big shots, had a lot of good defensive reads and was showing a lot of maturity,” Gwilliam said.
“Cache has just become a steady force for us at both ends of the floor. He’s worked really hard to become more athletic and we can definitely see that paying off.”
Foothills, which had eight players graduate from the program, boasts five returning athletes in Sorensen, Perrett, Nash Byam, Van Kerrison and Mac Purinton along with strong talent coming through the JV ranks.
“They all spent the offseason working and just trying to get better and playing a lot of basketball,” Gwilliam said. “A lot of them are, the affectionate term we use, gym rats. They just want to play basketball all of the time.
“They’ve improved a ton and I couldn’t be more happy with how they’ve started off.”
Gwilliam, the longtime bench boss of the Falcons senior boys, stepped up to take on the senior girls coaching when the position needed to be filled.
Playing primarily a tournament schedule, the senior teams will be at five of the same tournaments with the other two held in the same vicinity.
“The players, the parents and my assistant coaches have just been awesome as far as helping,” the coach added. “It is very busy, but I’ve been loving it.”
Next up on the tournament docket is the Cougars Classic, Dec. 8-9 in Cardston.
The Falcons girls have drawn Western Canada in the opening match with the potential of playing the defending provincial champion Raymond in the following match.
Foothills takes on Strathmore in the opener in the boys bracket.
