The Spartans got a sneak peek at crunch time at its annual home tournament.
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School’s senior boys and girls closed out the Spartans Invitational basketball tournament on a winning note Saturday at the Okotoks area school in an eight team competition chock full of Foothills Athletic Council opposition.
“We moved our tournament and thought we would have a later season tournament and talking to the other coaches, they thought it was really good timing too,” said Ken Zelez, Spartans senior boys coach and athletic director. “The fact we had three league teams on the boys side isn’t always the best thing, but they liked it.
“It was a gamble on our part, but it paid off. On the girls side, there was more teams that didn’t see each other as often so that worked out well.”
The boys bracket featured three teams featured in the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association 2A rankings in Heritage Christian (10), the Oilfields Drillers (9), Spartans (honourable mention) along with a strong FAC league foe in High River’s Notre Dame Collegiate.
STS saw its second half rally come up short in a 71-62 loss to Heritage Christian in its opener.
“We wanted to play Heritage Christian first because all of our fans have seen Notre Dame and Oilfields already so we wanted to really put on a real unknown showcase,” Zelez said.
“They’re super strong, kudos to them and we couldn’t quite make our comeback like we normally do. We’ve been a comeback team all season and seem to spot the teams we’ve played in our last nine games anywhere from 10 to 20 points. This time, we couldn’t make it back.”
The Spartans bounced back with wins over Oilfields and NDC, two teams they could see in league playoffs this week.
“We ended up pulling ahead and managed to keep a lead, normally were up and down,” Zelez said. “We were short players on the weekend, but all in all the players that were there really stepped up.
“Every time we play NDC, and Oilfields, we’re always really nervous because they have these great scoring runs that we had to try and stop. NDC, more than any other team we’ve played this year, has these great momentum runs.”
The Spartans girls lost to a strong Drillers team, were foiled by Bearspaw Christian and closed the tournament with a convincing win over Heritage Christian.
“We knew that Oilfields is super strong,” the coach added. “And with Bearspaw Christian, we weren’t quite sure, I think that could have been a winnable game for our girls.
“The final game, they ended up beating the Heritage Christian girls by a good margin. It was a good feeling all around with the tournament, the right teams won and we’re happy with it.”
The Spartans boys went into the Foothills Athletic Council playoffs as the first seed and defeated the fourth-seed Highwood Mustangs in the semifinal Monday night. Oilfields lost to NDC in the other semifinal.
STS hosts the boys finals on Feb. 28 with the bronze medal game pitting Oilfields and Highwood at 5:30 p.m. and the gold medal game vs. NDC at 7:15 p.m.
The girls finals go at Oilfields in Diamond Valley at the same times on Wednesday, the bronze game featuring Holy Cross and STS and the gold medal game a clash between the Drillers and Mustangs.
