INNISFAIL - The junior high boys' basketball team at Innisfail Middle School had a silver lining to their season.
The boys finished in second place with a silver medal at the Chinook's Edge North Athletic Association (CENAA) championship tournament in early March in Red Deer.
"We were expecting to have quite a strong team (this season). Our returning Grade 9s are quite a strong, core group of returning players," said co-coach Mike Walsh, who was joined by Tom Stone behind the bench this year. "There was also a handful of Grade 8s returning from their Grade 7 year."
The team consists of 13 players in grades 7 to 9.
In addition to winning a silver medal at their CENAA league tournament, the team also won the Penhold and Spruce View tournaments in February.
The boys' junior high basketball team finished the regular season in third place with six wins and two losses. Their overall record including CENAA league playoffs, was 14 wins and three losses. That included victories over Mother Teresa School from Sylvan Lake and Innisfail's St. Marguerite Bourgeoys School.
That put them into gold medal contention against Red Deer's …cole Camille J Lerouge School on March 4.
"Camille was one of the two teams that beat us in the regular season and they are an outstanding team," said Walsh. "It's always disappointing to lose, but this is only the third year in the (CENAA) league for Innisfail Middle School. We went from near the bottom of the standings to last year's fourth-place finish to this year's second-place finish.
"We've seen tremendous growth in our basketball program and the future looks quite bright," he added.
Some key factors in this year's silver medal win in CENAA league play can be credited to the players themselves, noted Walsh.
"I'll give credit to our returning Grade 9s. They worked very hard and they're very good at basketball," he said. "We play quite an aggressive style of basketball. We like to put pressure on the opposing team and while we do have some size, our game is really based on speed. We use our speed to our advantage.
"When we're really successful, it's because of our aggressive style of defence," said Walsh.
That second-place finish in league standings earned them a spot at the Central West Alberta Junior High Athletic Association (CWAJHAA) zone championships in Red Deer on March 11.
Walsh said it was the first time the Innisfail Middle School junior high boys' basketball team played for a gold medal in the league and was also the first time they represented Chinook's Edge School Division at the zone level.
Despite facing some tough teams at zones this year, the team can be proud of their hard work, said Walsh.
"We always want positive results but looking at the big picture we have to understand this is about experience and really learning how much better we could be to be really competitive at that next level," Walsh concluded.
Mike Walsh, co-coach
"We always want positive results but looking at the big picture we have to understand this is about experience and really learning how much better we could be to be really competitive at that next level."
