Junior A and B Boys Basketball: Sabres dominate Hawks

"A" Boys Jr. Basketball: Sabres vs Hawks
C. Davis photos and video

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

Livingstone School's Jr. A and B Sabres boys teams hosted their Halton Hawks counterparts on Thursday evening, January 24.  First up were the "B" squads.

"B" Boys: Sabres vs Hawks

Junior B Boys: Sabres vs Hawks

The Sabres scored right of the first jump in this game, and then scored again shortly after.  Hawks #5 Deloy Mackenzie took off on a great breakaway, making his basket and bringing the score to 4-2.  Mackenzie ended up playing for both the A and B Hawks teams, and he was a firecracker all night.  However, the Hawks were clearly dominant in this match, driving the score up to 16-4 by the end of the first quarter.  Sabres' #20 Matthias Vanderplas scored 8 points in the quarter. The Hawks played a much better second quarter, outscoring the Sabres by two points.  At the half the score was 20-10 in the Sabres' favor.  

The Hawks upped their game in the third quarter, but they had trouble actually sinking their shots.  Vanderplas again scored 8 points for the Sabres, and 1t was 30-14 going into the final quarter.  Levi Sekella of the Sabres made a great long shot, and the Sabres spread the scoring around.  Sabres' #7 Tom Phillips proved to be a master at hassling the ball away from his opponents.

At the final buzzer it was Sabres 40, Hawks 16.

"This is a building year for next year," said Sabres Coach Sana Connelly.  The Hawks have 2 wins and 3 losses for the season so far.  All of the team members are in Grade 7 except for one who is in Grade 8.  She said the team has been working on getting those important rebounds.  "We started out with 9 players, we only have 8 now. I think our defence is really improving. We just have to make more shouts under the net... those shots from right under the net, that's for sure."  She expressed pride in her team's sportsmanship.  "They have a great attitude."

Deloy Mackenzie was the top scorer for the Hawks with 10 points.  Matthias Vanderplas was the top scorer for the Sabres with 22 points.

While fact checking I discovered this bonus video of Deloy Mackenzie's scuba diving in ice cold water experiment (below). That's one tough kid.

Junior A Boys: Sabres vs Hawks

This was a very one sided game, with the Sabres dominating the play throughout.  They were an unstoppable machine.  I lost the score sheet on this one, but the disparity was significant.  I have to give the Hawks credit for this though: not once did it look like they were giving up.  They battled right to the end.  Good sportsmanship all around, in both of these games.

Top scorers for the Sabres were Jonathan Erickson, Chris Cail, Ross Cook, Brady Douglas, and Matthias Vanderplas.

According to Sabres "A" Boys coach Paul Erickson, the team did really well in Fort Macleod the day before, winning by a 23 point margin.  The team played at a tournament in Hillspring last weekend, and they have tournaments coming up in Okotoksthis weekend, Vauxhall next weekend, and then a league tournament at St. Michael's School in Pincher Creek.  "Hopefully we'll be at the Hillspring tournament after that, it will be between us and St. Mike's who represents this area to go down there.  We have a league tournament with them in February that will probably determine who goes to Zones.  They were challenged at last week's Hillspring tournament.  "We lost to bigger schools," said Coach Erickson, saying the team still did quite well.

"B" Tournament this weekend

Matthew Halton School is hosting a "B" Girls and Boys Basketball tournament, starting Friday evening and running through Saturday.


Correction made: Dana Connelly is the "B" Sabres coach, not the coach for the Hawks as originally stated here.