High school girls basketball returns with a mini-provincials in Okotoks this weekend.
After a year hiatus, the Foothills Falcons are once again putting on the Sheep River Shoot-Out with this year’s tournament offering up five of Alberta’s ranked 4A teams on the court.
“It’s super exciting for the school and the athletics department in general,” said Falcons coach Montana Romeril. “We’re hosting I would say the toughest tournament in Alberta for 4A basketball.
“There’s five that are ranked in the top 10 and the other three are honourable mention, so really, it’s all top 15.”
Foothills, ranked sixth, opens the competition on Friday, Jan. 10 versus Calgary’s St. Francis.
The eight-team tournament includes the No. 2 ranked Centennial Coyotes, No. 4 Magrath, No. 7 Western Canada and No. 9 Wiliam Aberhart.
“Everybody’s first game is super tough,” Romeril said. “Whoever wins this tournament, those rankings could change and that’s our goal to hold our home court and come out with a tournament win.”
It will be the first game action since Foothills won a bronze medal at the Cardston Cougar Classic in mid-December.
Foothills has made the most of gym time during the holiday break.
“Everyone had the time off to be with family and friends and we’re just gearing up this last week for this week and we’re ready to roll,” the coach added. “We’ve had a huge advantage with being able to get back in the gym this past week and getting that rust off compared to other teams.
“If we’re able to run from the get-go then it’s hard to keep up. So we’ve got to run the floor and fast break and make those transition lay ups and shots. We want to run teams out of the gym and be in shape, that’s been our objective over the break.”
The Sheep River Shoot-out was not held last year due to scheduling conflicts during the exam period in January.
They had no problems filling the bracket in its return.
“They moved the tournament so Calgary teams could come and all of a sudden it was just an influx of teams that wanted to play and we picked who we wanted,” Romeril said.
“Everyone there has good players, good coaches and it will be very good basketball in Okotoks on the weekend.”
The playoff games on Saturday run at 1:45 p.m., 3:30 p.m. 5:15 p.m. and culminate with the gold medal game at 7 p.m. at Foothills Composite.
The full schedule can be found below.
