The News Review sports writer Chase Ruttig selected excerpts of his top Yorkton sports moments of 2013. Here is his story on the Yorkton Regional High School winning its second straight bronze provincial basketball medal.
Nearly five years ago Jason Payne saw the last player from the Kris Heshka led Raiders provincial championship team graduate in Nolan Johnstone, ending an era as well as seeing nearly his entire team graduate creating a transition period for the Sr. Raiders basketball program. In came Daniel Mandziuk and Ben Redl, who made the transition process nice and short for the Raiders, coming in as grade nines from MC Knoll and St. Mikes respectively, the two would form a bond together and provide an immediate impact for the Raiders with Mandziuk leading the Sr. Raiders in scoring in just Grade nine.
Fast forward to 2013 and the Raiders headed into Hoopla for the last weekend of the dynamic duo's high school career looking to go out on top against number one ranked Prince Albert St. Mary's, a team that had beat them four times this season. Something that was a longshot statistically was something the Raiders thought they could realistically achieve after an impressive March performance against St. Mary's and quality wins over Swift Current and Weyburn set up a date in the provincial semifinals with the top seeded Maurauders.
However, the fairytale ending was not quite in the books as a 13-0 St. Mary's run to start the game followed by another quick run by the Maurauders to end the half had the Raiders down 15 with just two quarters left in the game.
Things did not go the Raiders way to start the third quarter either as St. Mary's employed a full court press to jump out to a lead the Raiders could not come back from, resulting eventually in a blowout loss to end the Raiders dreams of reaching a provincial championship. "We were tight and nervous and it showed in some of the plays that didn't go our way in the semifinal," said Jason Payne about the loss. Payne also pointed out that the 13-0 run was probably the turning point of the game. "Going down 13-0 to start the game was a huge blow for us as we went into halftime just down 15 so if we could have erased that start we pretty much played with them for the rest of the first half after that point" laments Payne.
After the loss the Raiders would go up against Regina school O'Neill in the bronze medal game. With both teams coming off of heartbreaking semifinal losses both teams did not know what to expect coming into the game emotion wise, something Payne noted and addressed before the game saying, "I spoke to the players and Grade Twelve's going into the bronze medal game and asked them how they wanted to play their last game with a Raider jersey on and I felt that kind of spoke to them heading into a game where both teams could have easily just mailed it in and went home after a tough loss the day before."
In the first half the Raiders and O'Neill exchanged baskets with each team matching up well with each other. O'Neill's talented guards and one big post player gave an almost perfect balance to the Raiders strengths which made for a great display of basketball early on with both teams kind of feeling each other out
In the third quarter O'Neill decided to make their run, jumping out to a ten point lead to start the fourth, giving the Raiders a huge hole to overcome. However some huge plays from their senior leaders got the Raiders back into the game as Darien Kequahtoway scored 21points in the game, getting the Raiders back into the game with some timely three point shooting to help tie the game.
With the game tied Payne drew up a pick and roll for Mandziuk to run with Redl for the last time, where Mandziuk drew the double team and kicked it out to David Kauenhofen who drained a three to win the game and secure bronze for the Raiders. "It is hard to play in a bronze medal game after wanting so badly to win a provincial title but I can say we are all proud of what we accomplished this year and I will miss each player who graduated on this team" said Payne who noted that losing players is the hardest thing about coaching high school basketball.
The Raiders will now look to begin a new era with new players. The nature of the beast of high school sports makes it that way, a talented crop of Jr. Raiders and Alex Popoff will lead the way next season while Mandziuk/Redl move on. The torch has been passed but the memories of the era live on.
