The Moose Jaw Invitational Senior Girls Basketball Tournament opened on Thursday night with five games and three local teams hitting the court at Peacock and Central Collegiate.
Peacock and Central both picked up wins in their opening games to advance onto the A side, while Vanier suffered a hard fought loss and dropped to the B side.
Peacock 76 Regina Johnson 44
It's not a game that the Peacock Toilers are going to save for the record books, but they got the job done on Thursday night, knocking off the Regina Johnson Wildcats, 76-44, in their opening game at the Moose Jaw Invitational.
Peacock struggled to get their offence humming like it normally is, but they still did enough to come away with a lopsided win.
“We're off to go a good start,” said Reene Verge, Peacock head coach. “We want to win four games this weekend, that's the girls goal, and we're one game closer.”
The Toilers got off to a 26-11 lead in the first quarter, but the Wildcats played them tight over the next two quarters, with the game going into halftime at 44-23 for Peacock. It was 61-37 after three quarters before Peacock tightened up defensively in the fourth for the 32-point win.
“We're just trying to play our game and we're really working at our zone offence, and they played zone the whole game, so that was an opportunity to challenge ourselves that way,” said Verge.
It wasn't a great shooting night for Peacock. They were getting good looks, but just couldn't get anything to go down with regularity.
“A lot of times we weren't square to the hoop, but we talked about that,” said Verge. “We missed a ton of shots, but all you have to do is keep shooting through that. The worst thing the girls can do is to quit shooting, but they didn't do that.”
Libby Epoch finished with a team-high 17 points for Peacock in the win, while Macaela Crone chipped in with 15 and Caitlyn Kitts added 14. Regina Johnson's Larisa Velic had a strong game in the loss, putting in a game-high 20 points.
The Toilers will be back on the court on Friday night in the quarterfinals at 7:30pm at Peacock.
Central 57 Melville 55
The Central Cyclones didn't win pretty, but they still came away with a win in their Invitational opening game on Thursday night. The Cyclones knocked off the Melville Cobras, 57-55, in a tight game throughout.
“You're always happy with a win, but there's a lot of things that we need to take from this game and work on,” said Jocelyn Wigmore, Central head coach. “We had a great game on Tuesday and then were a completely different team tonight. We need that consistency of always coming out no matter who we're playing.”
Coming away with a win was the bonus for Central as they seemed off their game throughout the first three quarters. The score was deadlocked at 41-41 heading into the fourth and Central finally got things rolling early in the frame to give themselves a cushion on the Cobras.
“Hayley Henrikson played some really good defence on their number 13 and that really got in her head and it kind of frustrated them a bit and they were throwing up some shots and with our big posts we got some key rebounds,” said Wigmore. “The defence in the fourth quarter definitely helped us out and that turned into some nice easy buckets for us.”
Central struggled early in the game with driving towards the net. They were able to beat the first defender off the dribble, but gave away plenty of turnovers in the middle of the key, missing opportunities early.
“They played aggressive defence on us and they were right up in our face and that makes our guards panic a little bit more, but we need to start using a jab step to get open,” said Wigmore. “The girls are just still working that and by them doing that it's going to open up our inside game and we had a huge mismatch with our posts that we didn't use.”
The posts led the Cyclones to the win as Paige Newans was their most consistent scorer throughout the night, pouring in a game-high 20 points, while Diana Lumbala added 13. Shania Lowe paced the Cobras in the loss with 17 points and Amanda Lowe chipped in with 16.
The Cyclones are no doubt happy to be on the A side, but know that the games won't be any easier going forward.
“We have got to play different the rest of the weekend or else we're going to find ourselves in a terrible situation,” said Wigmore. “Every game is going to get tougher from here on out, so we have to make sure that we're playing at the top of our game.”
Central is back in action on Friday night at 9:00pm in the quarterfinals at Peacock.
PA St Mary 53 Vanier 40
A bad first quarter sunk the Vanier Spirits in their opening game at the Moose Jaw Invitational on Thursday night.
Vanier trailed 25-5 after the first quarter and despite strong play the rest of the way, they couldn't overcome the deficit in a 53-40 loss to Prince Albert St. Mary.
“I was disappointed in our first quarter, but other than that I actually think we may have outscored them for the rest of the game, but when you're down 20 points after one quarter it's tough,” said Bob Gottselig, Vanier head coach.
The Spirits got stronger as the game went on, but that first quarter deficit was just too much for them to make up. They continued to battle right until the final buzzer and that's an encourage sign going into the weekend.
“We played them tough, we closed the gap by halftime, the second half was pretty much even score-wise, but we didn't play a good first quarter and maybe that's what happens with a young team,” stated Gottselig.
Despite the loss, Vanier is taking the positives out of the game in the fact that they were able to stick with a very strong team for most of the game.
“The girls realize that they can play,” said Gottselig. “Our game is improving, other coaches here have mentioned that we've improved a lot and we're going to get some confidence from it and play better.”
Tori Beattie was Vanier's top scorer in the loss, put in ten points, Rebeka Flanagan was right there with her, scoring eight. Quinn Buettner led the way for Prince Albert St. Mary as she had a game-high 17 points.
The Spirits now drop down to the B side of the tournament, they're back on the court on Friday night at 6:00pm.
Fri, Apr 19, 1:00 PM
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