As it is for every school in the province, the goal for the John Paul II Crusaders and Unity Warriors basketball teams is to make it to the Hoopla provincial championships in March.
However, both programs are also keeping an eye towards the future as they each have a number of young players taking to the court this winter.
“It’ll be a bit of a learning year for us,” Crusaders head coach Bruce Yockey said. “We have seven Grade 10s on the roster so it’s very important for us to get them a lot of court time, especially against many of the top teams in the 4A category.”
“We’d like to make our way back into the 3A Hoopla mix but we have a very young team with many Grade 10 and 11 players,” Warriors head coach Matthew Poirier added. “We’ve lost a lot of players due to graduation, so it’ll take some time to get everyone to gel together. In the years to come though, I think we’ll have a very exciting team in Unity.”
The two sides squared off in the third-place game at a season-opening tournament at John Paul II Collegiate in North Battleford Saturday, with the Warriors coming away with a 54-30 victory.
“The goal this weekend was to have fun, but to also improve our skills,” Poirier said. “I felt like we did a really good job of that.
“There’s some work we have to do, especially with our passing as we had some struggles with that against John Paul II, but it was still a pretty good weekend for our first time together as a group.”
It was a busy weekend for the Crusaders, as they ended up playing in both sides of the tournament draw with only seven teams competing in the event.
Prior to taking on the Warriors, they won the fifth-place game by a score of 45-30 over the Meadow Lake Carpenter Spartans.
“The girls were dead tired at the end of the day, but they agreed that it was better for them to be getting through all of the early-season conditioning in games rather than running drills in practice,” Yockey said.
“I was really happy with how the weekend went and there were a lot more positives that we can take out of the tournament than negatives. We were very good around the outside of the basket, but our ball movement is something that we can get better at.”
The Melfort Comets went on to win the tournament over the Warman Wolverines.
The Crusaders next tournament will be in two weeks, when they’ll travel to Balfour Collegiate in Regina.
Meanwhile, the Warriors will return to action this weekend for a tournament in Caronport.
The provincial Hoopla championships will be held in Regina from March 23-25.
