Senior boys basketball - Redskins defeat Hawks

Halton Hawks vs Piikani Redskins

Toni Lucas, Pincher Creek Voice

Matthew Halton's Senior Boys Hawks basketball team hosted the Piikani Redskins on Wednesday evening January 8.  Piikani proved to be the better team on the floor and won the game by more than double.

The Hawks are in a rebuilding year with new players and they faced a more seasoned Piikani team that has  played together for years, and most of them have worked with Coach Barnaby Provost starting in junior high.  Provost took a break from coaching last season but returned this year.

Hawks Austin Sinclair and Jared Duffield led their team in scoring with 12 and 11 points respectively, and the team overall is showing great heart and kept giving their best until the final buzzer.  "They got some really good shots, and it's all a learning experience," said Hawks Coach Niki McNab.  "I think there is only two or three returning players, and the rest are new.  Some of them are grade 12 and new."

"They are a pretty coachable team, we just have to get in our groove, it's been fun.  I think that there is some stuff we do really well, and some that we definitely need to improve on.  Our communication needs to be a lot better, and just learning where each other is going to be at, that will take playing together a few times.  Obviously this Brocket team has been together a long time, you can see that.  Now it's just getting our team comfortable with each other, and building their confidence."  This was only the third game played by the Hawks this season due to weather related cancellations last month.

Top scorer of the game for the Redskins was Josh with 18 points followed by Johnny at 17 and Blaze at 16.

Piikani won the game with a final score of 90 - 44.

"Most of these guys are grade elevens, and three grade tens," said Redskins Coach Barnaby Provost.  "So, I'll have most of them back next year.  We have twelve guys,  two guys that are injured right now.  The league has two or three strong teams, and all the other teams are battling it out.  My goal is to finish in the top half, and then next year will be our year.  We've got three strong teams in the league, if we can be competitive with them, I'll be happy."

"The strategy going forward is to get them to play good honest defense.  We're a small team, and we're going to have problems with size.  We have no big key guys, so it's defense and being scrappy, and hopefully it works out.  It's a different approach, I usually focus on offense first and this year it's defense."

"It was a good win, but I don't like it when my team is disrespectful, showboating, and things like that," said Provost.  "It makes us look bad.  I had to keep subbing people in and out, telling them to be respectful, play hard, and focus on their defense, overplay their right, and switch out screens.  The last half we did a lot of subbing and reminding guys to be respectful.  This was a chance for the guys to play, and if they were going to be goofing around, then there was no playing time.  It was hard, and we still had a couple guys showboating.  I have been where Halton is now, and rebuilding.  It really hurts the pride."

Provost related a story from the team's past.   "They won this league in 2010, and 2011 was a really rebuilding year.  They had like, six guys, and they played in the league final and I couldn't believe it.  Everyone got fouled out except for one guy, so they had to call the game.  I had never seen where everyone is gone.  One guy.  He couldn't even pass it to anybody, so the game just can't go on.  That was the first time I had ever heard of that.  It was a really tough rebuilding year."

Because of cancellations Piikani has played three league games this season, two against Halton.