The first crosstown basketball clash of the season provided split winnings for the Falcons and Knights.
The Foothills Falcons girls bested the Holy Trinity Academy Knights 66-46 with HTA then holding off the Comp 78-75 in an overtime thriller in front of a packed house in the senior high basketball double-header Tuesday night at HTA.
“That’s the state of basketball in Okotoks, you’ve got two high schools that can consistently produce some quality players and games,” said Knights boys head coach Sam Aiello. “From Foothills’ standpoint, there’s great coaching over there and I thought we were pretty gritty tonight.
“We let go of a bit of a lead there, but in overtime, we hung tough and played gritty even though they made that incredible shot to tie it.”
In the boys match, a final minute surge from the Falcons forced the game past regulation.
Foothills’ Cache Perrett was money from outside the arc on two occasions in the final 30 seconds, the second of which tied the game at 71-71 on a buzzer-beater with 0.5 seconds on the clock.
“He’s played a ton of basketball his whole life and he wants to be the guy in that moment,” said Amron Gwilliam, head coach of both Falcons senior teams. “He wants to have the shot, he wants to have the ball and he’s becoming a leader on our team.”
The message going into overtime was it’s 0-0 with five minutes to play and attack the rim with the Falcons in foul trouble, Aiello said.
“It could have gone two ways there,” he said. “Our guys could have been, ‘Oh man, we’re done here,’ and they didn’t, they maintained their grit and I’m just proud of them.
“They played hard, they worked hard and the fans got a pretty good game out of it tonight.”
In overtime, the Knights got to the free-throw line and saw Owen Vanin score on quick in-bound play and on a step back jumper to take a three-point lead.
With one final possession, this time Foothills’ buzzer beater would not go through the net.
“When Cache hit that buzzer beater shot, it was really demoralizing,” said Vanin, a Grade 12 guard. “But we rallied back, hit a few shots, had that nice in-bound play to keep the momentum going and were controlling the clock a little bit better.”
Knights guard Lucas Barlow paced the offence with a dynamic shooting performance, scoring 27 points on nine-three pointers. Xavier Krueger had 19 points with Vanin adding 11.
“We’re both great teams, some of the best in the province in my opinion,” Vanin added. “And the rivalry is a big factor, we both want to beat each other so bad and it’s just great to get it done.
"I think we played very good defence. We were practising a defensive scheme to counter the Comp's offence this whole week and it felt really good to see it in action throughout the game."
In the front-end of the double-header, Foothills led throughout and rode a second-half defensive rally to the 20-point victory.
“We had a couple of stretches where the girls played really well,” Gwilliam said. “We’re trying to work on a lot of things right now so we looked a little bit robotic in the first half, which is kind of to be expected, but we had a couple of stretches where we turned up the pressure and ran a little bit more of our style of what we’re used to doing and that really helped us.”
The Knights trimmed the deficit to six points early in the second half before Foothills went into more of a pressure defence, keying a 20-0 run to wrestle back momentum.
“Our girls when they play defence are really, really good,” the coach added. “They had long stretches where we didn’t compete on the defensive end, so when we did pick up our defensive intensity, a lot of good things happened.”
Falcons forward Savanah Sommerfeldt registered a team-high 18 points with guard Dior Sellars adding 12 points. Addisyn Gwilliam had a strong shooting night with three from beyond the arc and 11 points.
Paige McNichol paced the Knights with 18 points, including four three-pointers. Paige Vanegmond and Sierra Dudar each added eight points.
“Basketball in Okotoks is awesome,” Gwilliam said. “People care, people want to come out and watch, it’s a loud atmosphere and this is exactly what we want to play in.
“It’s great to have both sides having a ton of fans out here, being loud and being proud for their friends and school and teammates. It’s really awesome.”
Aiello echoed the sentiment.
“We told the kids before the game, it’s excitement, it’s nervousness, you’re playing in front of a lot of your friends and your parents, plus the other school,” he said.
“That atmosphere, that’s really what I love about this town, basketball is a really big sport in this town and people come and support it and when we put out products like we did tonight, that’s why people enjoy it so much.
“It’s exciting to be a part of.”
