The Peacock Toilers made it to the 4A girls provincial final four for the second straight year, but after a pair of losses over the weekend at HOOPLA in Regina left them in fourth place.

“Although we’re not coming home with provincial medal, actually in a lot of ways it was how we wanted to end our season in the sense that we left everything we had on the court,” said head coach Reene Verge. “We came into both those games with two great game plans that the kids executed.”

Peacock lost 72-59 to the top ranked North Battleford Vikings in the semifinal on Friday afternoon, and then in a rematch of last year’s provincial final, lost to the Humboldt Mohawks 56-48 in the bronze medal game on Saturday afternoon at University of Regina.  

“If you talked to anybody who watched those girls play in both those games, they left everything they had on the floor,” said Verge.  “A few hoops here or there, and you could have seen a different outcome, but certainly they played very, very hard and we simply lost out to two better teams.”

National team player Paige Crozon led Humboldt in the win with 33 points, while Megan Crone was Peacock’s top scorer with 17.

The fourth place finish ends a spectacular season for the Toilers after they won their second straight Moose Jaw league title.  Verge says they progressed well throughout the season, “I think the girls learnt a lot of hard work and dedication and coming together as a team and working hard on a daily basis and setting some goals.”

The Toilers will graduate four players from this year’s squad, but Verge says they have pillars to build on, “We have a handful coming back, so I think there’s a real nucleus that we can build on and certainly that will be our focus for next year.”

Notre Dame -- who were disqualified from the Moose Jaw league playoffs for playing too many games during the season -- won the 4A girls provincial title, beating North Battleford 82-69 in the final on Saturday night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Central Cyclones were upset in the 4A boys provincial final, losing 86-52 to North Battleford in the final on Saturday at the University of Regina.

Central was the top seed coming into the game, but were knocked off by the number two seeded Vikings.  

Jonathan Phillips and Bryce Marcotte led the scoring for the Cyclones with 12 points, while Kyle Sabraw had a game-high 23 points for North Battleford.

Central had knocked off Yorkton Regional in the provincial semifinal on Friday, 76-51.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Caronport Cougars are coming back from HOOPLA with a bronze medal from the 3A girls tournament.  They knocked off Regina Christian in the bronze medal game on Saturday afternoon, 67-48.

Christa Clearwater had a game-high 17 points for the Cougars and Laine McLaren was the top scorer for Regina with 14.

Caronport lost to Indian Head in the provincial semifinal on Friday, 52-48, and Indian Head would lose to Lumsden 75-63 in the final on Saturday.