The regular season went into the books in the Moose Jaw High School Senior Basketball League on Tuesday night and the top-ranked Central Cyclones showed what makes them such a dominant team in the boys division.

The Cyclones pushed the pace throughout their game and seemed to score at will as they rolled to a 122-70 win over the Assiniboia Rockets to finish with a perfect 8-0 record on the year, securing first place heading into next week’s playoffs.

“It was good, we came out and played hard for our last game, went undefeated in the regular season and it felt good to get that last win to cap off the regular season,” said Central grade 11 guard Kyle Boughen.

The undefeated regular season is one goal down for the Cyclones, but Boughen added that they still have much more in their sights.

“We want to win a provincial championship, that’s our goal, so being undefeated, we don’t really focus on that, we just try to keep going and push through,” he said. “We want to bring home gold for Moose Jaw, that’s our goal overall.”

Central is well on their way to accomplishing that goal as few teams can compete with their scoring depth. Boughen led the charge for Central with 31 points in the win, but five other players were able to hit double digits, including 24 points from Jaxson Brownell.

Boughen said their offence was clicking on all cylinders in the victory, “We pride ourselves on our defence mostly, but our offence was flowing well, we’ve got a lot of kids that can put the ball in the hoop,” he said.

“We’re not the tallest, we’re not the strongest, but we try to be fast and score.”

Riley Seaborn added 15 points; Hardil Khubber picked up 12; Gurav Changar finished with 11; and Ethan Johnson posted 10 in the win.

Assiniboia was led by the league’s leading scorer, Logan Fettes, as he put up 35 points in the losing cause. Fettes finished the season averaging 35.9 points per game, which is the second highest per game total in league history.

Central jumped out to a 32-16 advantage in the first quarter and led 67-26 at halftime. The Rockets didn’t go away however, as their offence found a groove in the second half, keeping pace with the Cyclones throughout the final two quarters.

Boughen said coming out of the game, they need to make sure that they keep the pedal down through all four quarters heading into playoffs.

“We’ve got to work on our defence and communication, we usually try to focus on that and had been doing well in the past couple games, but it was a little rough tonight,” he said. “These games are always rougher because we come in feeling strong, put up big numbers and then it gets weaker in the fourth quarter. We’ve got make sure we have it going through the whole game.”

Assiniboia went 0-8 in the regular season, finishing in fifth place, which will put them in the quarterfinal next Tuesday.  They will travel to Caronport for that game after the Cougars lost 85-69 to the Peacock Toilers on Tuesday night to finish the year with a 2-6 record.

Peacock ends the season tied with Vanier for second place at 5-3.

The semifinals will be next Thursday.

* * *

The Central Cyclone girls squad put together a convincing performance in their regular season final on Tuesday, beating the Rockets, 97-28.

Alexa Watterson had 16 points in the win for Central, while Katie Coulson chipped in with seven.

“We ran our plays well, executed and worked hard on defence, so it was a good game,” said Clouson, a grade 11 guard for the Cyclones.

After a slow start to the season, the Cyclones went on to post a 6-2 mark, which gives them the second seed heading into the post-season. Clouson said the team has grown a lot over the course of the year and are ready to make some noise in the playoffs.

“We’ve put a lot of work in and I’m really proud of where all the girls are,” she said. “We’ve come a long way… It’s pretty even all the way through, I feel like defensively we’ve come a long way and offensively too.”

Maura Belles was the top scorer for Assiniboia in the loss with 13 points.

The Rockets went 2-6 in the regular season to finish in a three-way tie for third place with the Vanier Spirits and Caronport Cougars.

The Cougars lost 72-34 to the first place Peacock Toilers on Tuesday night in the regular season finale. Kennedy Ward led the charge for Peacock in the win with 21 points, while Piper Ingalls added 15. Mya Matthies was Caronport leading scorer with 14 in the loss.

Peacock went a perfect 8-0 during the regular season to capture the top seed.

The girls quarterfinal will be held next Tuesday as well, while the semifinals go next Thursday. The league city championship games will be held on Mar. 13 at Sask Polytech.