Last year a very young Saints team struggled for much of the season, only to have everything come together in the 4A Regional Championships in Moose Jaw where they played their best basketball of the season, falling to the fifth ranked Warman Wolverines 86-59 before lambasting the Notre Dame Hounds 65-40 to win their final game of the season.
Now head coach Garrett Karcha is hoping his team can use last year’s strong finish to power them on through the start of the current season. “Our best basketball was played at the end of the year last year, so hopefully we’ll start off where we left off last year and continue to become better and more of a team,” said Karcha, adding that his early season expectations aren’t that his team wins every game, but that they’re simply competitive and show promise. “My expectation is that we’re going to show improvement over last year and that we show continued improvement and show that we can jell together early this year.”
To do that, Karcha says he will lean on six veteran grade 12 players, including four returning starters. “Last year we only graduated two guys, so we have four starters coming back and that should definitely help us,” mentioned the Saints head coach, adding that three players in particular will be looked upon to lead the team. “We expect Brody Kormos, Bryan Buzinski and Cody Doll to step up this year and lead the way.
“Brody plays like a football player out there, Bryan is quick and is a good shooter and Cody is solid defensively, so they definitely have what it takes to lead the way.”
But while the veterans will be asked to do the heavy lifting, Karcha says he expects the rookies to do more than their fair share of the work as well. “We have a couple of young guys that we are looking for good things from,” suggested Karcha. “Grady Hawkins is a really good shooter from the outside so we’re excited to help develop him.
“CJ Gimena is a little point guard that has some skill, so we’re interested to see what will happen with those guys. They’re good shooters and that’s what we’re looking at so that’s a positive.”
Size wise the Saints won’t be one of the biggest teams on the court this season. Because of that, Karcha feels his team will take a more ‘Steph Curry – Golden State Warriors’ approach to basketball. “Other than Kormos we’re not really a big size team, so I hope that we’ll do a lot of shooting and running with the ball,” said the Saints head coach. “Steph Curry has had a major influence on basketball and you can see that at the youth level here.
“Everyone wants to shoot threes and get out and transition and score easy baskets, and that’s what we’re built for so that’s what we’re looking to do this year.”
As for Provincials, Karcha believes that this season is Sacred’s best chance at qualifying. “That’s always our goal, to make it to Hoopla. We’re definitely going to work for that and the guys know that they need to put the effort in to get there,” offered Karcha, continuing, “With the way the 4A category has changed with all the bigger schools moving up to 5A, our 4A category is pretty small and everyone has the opportunity to go to provincials. If you can string some good games together you can definitely make it to provincials.”
The Saints first action of the season will be this weekend when they travel to Swift Current for a two day tournament on Friday and Saturday.
