The Weyburn Eagles senior girls basketball team put up a good fight in their home tournament on the weekend of Feb. 18, but in the end were not strong enough.
The Weyburn Eagles senior girls basketball team put up a good fight in their home tournament on the weekend of Feb. 18, but in the end were not strong enough. The girls hosted some of the top 4A girls teams in the Moose Jaw Peacock Toilers and the North Battleford Vikings, and their play in those games showed the Eagles where they are at heading into playoffs in early March.
The girls started out the competition with a game against the Frontier Raiders. The Raiders came into the game as the sixth-ranked 1A girls basketball team in the province. However, the Eagles easily handled the girls from the southwest, winning by a final score of 59-49.
The win over Frontier put Weyburn in the winner's bracket of the tournament. The Eagles faced off against Moose Jaw's Peacock Collegiate Toilers. The Toilers put up more of a challenge than the Eagles previous opponents from Frontier. Weyburn, who are ranked the 10th-best 4A girls team in Saskatchewan, kept the game close to Moose Jaw Peacock, the province's number four 4A girls team, in the first half, only down 33-32. However, in the game's second half the Toilers took control and won 78-60.
"They were just a high-level team. Also, they had a three-point shooter who just went off there for a while," said Eagles coach Trent Berling.
The loss gave the Eagles a short break before they played their last game. The team's final contest was their toughest of the tournament against the North Battleford Collegiate Vikings. The Vikings are currently ranked the number one 4A girls basketball team in the province, and it showed against the Eagles. A combination of fatigue and the Vikings pure talent added up to a 93-37 loss for the home team.
"They were just great at everything. They had more size than us, more speed, and they were just great at all the different aspects of game," Berling explained.
However, playing against a higher level of competition, such as North Battleford, will only be beneficial to the team on their journey to Hoopla, the Saskatchewan high school basketball championship, in Regina.
"The girls played hard and we came together more as a team throughout the tournament. They have been working on getting better at all part of the game, and we should get to be a pretty good team," Berling added.
The team's goal for the season is to reach Hoopla, but with the playoffs fast approaching it seems less and less likely they will be able to get there. Four teams will meet to compete for the provincial title, and right now "some of those higher level teams are out of level right," according to Berling.
However, in spite of the odds the team still has a chance to go to provincials. The girls will have a tough exhibition game tonight when they take on the number three 3A team in Saskatchewan, the Indian Head Broncs, at 6:15 p.m. at the Comp.
The Eagles then head down to Wilcox for their next tournament, hosted by the Notre Dame Hounds. The following weekend, the team will begin play in the conference playoffs, which is their first step to Regina.
