There was a feeling of mission accomplished for the North Battleford Comprehensive High School senior boys’ basketball team Saturday.
Thanks to a pair of wins at the 5A boys’ rural regional tournament at Prince Albert Carlton, the Vikings will be returning to the Hoopla provincial championships for the second straight season.
“This is something that the guys had hoped to do this season, and they are feeling pretty good about doing just that,” Viking head coach Jamie Sommerfield said.
“They played well in Prince Albert in both of their games and we’re heading into Regina on Thursday with some confidence.”
The Vikings, who lost in the quarter-finals of last year’s provincial championships to the Marion Graham Falcons of Saskatoon, officially clinched their spot in Hoopla with a 72-62 win over the Estevan Elects in the regional semifinal.
“I have to give full credit to Estevan as they gave us a tough challenge all the way through the game,” Sommerfeld said.
“That was our first game in a couple of weeks, so it took us a little bit to find our footing. We started to settle into the game and we ended up going ahead by 18 points at halftime.”
Riley Rathwell led the way for the Vikings with 29 points while Donny Mortenson scored 18 points for the Elecs.
The Vikings would then go on to win the regional tournament title with a 67-62 win over the Yorkton Raiders.
“Yorkton’s a very high pressure team on defence so we spent a lot of time preparing for that,” Sommerfeld said. “We did well there, but Yorkton had a couple of guys who shot the ball really well, and that’s something we didn’t expect.
“We wethered that storm and had a double-digit lead, but then we just went cold late. Damon Dutton stepped up though and sunk a couple of free throws at the end, which kept us out in front.”
Rathwell once again led the Vikings in scoring with 19 points, which matched the output from the Raiders leading scorer Dylan Sharp.
Awaiting the Vikings in Thursday’s Hoopla quarter-final game, which will take place at the University of Regina at 7:45 p.m., are the Bishop James Mahoney Saints of Saskatoon.
“We lost to them earlier this season at a tournament in Saskatoon back in December, but we were missing a couple of key players in that game, so I expect things to be a lot different this time around,” Sommerfeld said.
“They have a number of good athletes and they play defence really well, as our last game was a very low-scoring one. We only shot 29 per cent the last time we played them, so the odds of that happening again are very low.”
If the Vikings win that game, they will face either the Centennial Chargers of Saskatoon or the four-time defending 5A boys’ provincial champion LeBoldus Golden Suns of Regina in the semifinal Friday at 7:45 p.m. at the University of Regina
Meanwhile, the John Paul II Collegiate Crusaders missed out on making a second straight trip to 4A boys’ Hoopla tournament.
Last year’s bronze medal winners were knocked out of the provincial title hunt Friday night with a 75-64 first round loss to the Yorkton Sacred Heart Saints in Moose Jaw.
The Crusaders did finish off the year on a winning note, however, as they picked up a 71-51 win in a consolation game Saturday against the Churchill Chargers of La Ronge.
