Sabres Sr. Girls number one in Foremost and Province

John Lowry, Contributor

Livingstone Sabres Sr. Girls, #1 at Foremost Tournament and
#1 in the Province for all 1A Schools
Contributed photo

The Livingstone Sabres Sr. Girls basketball team took their team (12-0) to Foremost this past weekend (Jan 13 & 14). The Sabres are ranked #1 in the province for all 1A schools. The Sabres started the tournament Friday night against Rundle Academy from Calgary. There were no surprises in the first round match-up as the Sabres racked up 17 - 6, 47 - 10, and 71 – 16 quarter scores finishing the game 79 – 24.

The semi-final game on Saturday was against the Senator Gershaw Gators. The Sabres saw this team in the same game a week ago in Taber with roughly the same results. The Gators played a tight first half keeping the score close 15 – 12 and 28 – 20 at the half but soon lost control of the game giving up 26 points in the third (54-32). The Sabres put it in cruise to finish the game 66 – 43. The Sabres were able to get their bench a lot of playing minutes during the first two games.

This set up a championship game against home town Foremost Forettes and their across province rival Livingstone Sabres. The Sabres have attended this tournament for many years and this was the first shot at the championship title in recent memory. This was an important south zone match up as the Sabres beat Stirling at their home tournament before Christmas. The winner would be hard to displace for the number one seed in the south zone. The Sabres starters would have to play hard to control the Forettes potent offence if they wanted see a victory at the final buzzer. The Sabres started the game with an aggressive full court press jumping out to an early 25-5 lead finishing the quarter up 34-13. Hard play on both sides of the ball had the Sabres leading 48 – 28 at the half. The third quarter was much the same as the 2nd with the Sabres adding to their lead 64 – 42. Foremost mounted a come-back in the 4th with a 14 – 2 run but were unable to break the first quarter strangle hold that Livingstone built up. Final score Livingstone 72 and Foremost 60. This is the first time Livingstone has ever won The Forette tournament, it was a great moment for the coaches as grade 12 captains Ashleen Wiebe, Jennifer Erickson, and Emma Lowry accepted the trophy for Lundbreck. The 15 – 0 Sabres look forward to another strong ranking as the ASAA provincial ranker deliberate the provincial top 15 this week.

Coming up for the Sabres: Chinook League action Monday Jan 16 Livingstone vs County Central (Vulcan). JT Foster (Nanton) will host the Sabres on Jan 17. High School basketball takes a break for exams for the next couple of weeks. The Sabres first action back after the break will be February 8th at St. Michael’s (Pincher Creek). This will be Emma Lowry’s first basketball game back at St. Michael’s since she lead the Dragons in their 39-3 provincial championship season in 2010/2011.

Local tournaments:

February 10 & 11, 2012 – CMA (Castle Mountain Athletics) Classic girls tournament hosted at Matthew Halton School (Pincher Creek) – this year’s teams :

• St. Michael’s vs Kainai 2:00 pm, 
• Crowsnest vs Willow Creek 3:45pm, 
• Coaldale Christian vs FFCA (Calgary) 5:30 pm 
• Matthew Halton vs St. Joseph (Brooks) 7:15 pm

February 24 & 25, 2012 - Matthew Halton Hawks Tournament 8 girls & 8 boys teams,

March 15, 16 & 14, 2012 - The Livingstone Sabres are also hosting the 1A girls Provincial Basketball Tournament this year at Matthew Halton School in Pincher Creek .