For the Estevan Comprehensive School’s senior girls basketball team, the weekend was full of pink and full of smiles despite a pair of losses on their home turf.
The ECS girls basketball team raised $5,000 for Jackie Fitzsimmons and Payton Sernick through the school’s annual Shoot for a Cure Invitational Basketball Tournament on March 6 and 7. Fitzsimmons and Payton are diagnosed with lymphoma. Payton has also been diagnosed with leukemia.
“This tournament is about paying it forward,” said head coach of the senior girls basketball team, Jessie Smoliak. “I was letting my girls know that basketball is more than a game and that there’s more to life than what’s right in front of them.”
The fundraising goal for the tournament was $3,000.
Smoliak said she was “very proud,” of her team and everyone who volunteered their time and effort to raise the $5,000, which was achieved through various fundraising events at ECS and around the community over the past several weeks.
She noted the donations made by three of the eight schools participating in the tournament, including Moose Jaw Central, Moose Jaw Peacock and Weyburn Comprehensive Secondary School.
Smoliak said she was also impressed by the level of talent the different schools brought to the tournament, emphasized by the play of Avery Pearce of the Lumsden Angels, who recently committed to the University of Regina’s women’s basketball program.
“I was pretty proud of how Kristen played,” Smoliak said, referring to Kristen Skjonsby’s defensive assignment against Pearce, who was hitting tough lay-up after tough lay-up throughout the weekend.
The Elecs made quick work of Moose Jaw Central on Friday before facing off against Lumsden on Saturday morning, who finished the tournament in second place behind Moose Jaw Peacock in a 76-68 loss.
Estevan gained some control during the early moments of the first quarter with several fast break opportunities, but couldn’t hang on to that momentum as they traded blows with Lumsden throughout the second and third quarters.
“We just couldn’t score when we needed to at the end,” Smoliak said, but added she wasn’t disappointed with how her team played, noting her team matched up well with Lumsden, who won bronze during the Hoopla basketball championship in Regina in 2014.
“To compete against a team like that and stick with them was really good,” she said.
Skjonsby led the way for the Elecs with 23 points, while Pearce netted 28 for the Angels.
With the loss, the Elecs took on Swift Current to determine the third place winner.
The Elecs were quite familiar with Swift Current, who they beat in January during tournament earlier this year, but couldn’t keep up after the tough loss to Lumsden and fell 65-56.
“It was a heartbreaking game because we beat them before,” Smoliak said, adding this was Skjonsby and Macy Earl’s final home game of their high school careers. “Skjonsby had a lot of interceptions near the end of the game; she didn’t want to lose with this being their last home game. They both went hard and took it personal.”
No matter the outcome, Smoliak reminded her team of the achievement that extended beyond the basketball court.
“This tournament was unbelievable. There was so much work behind it,” she said.
