The Olds High School Spartans are the 4J south central zone basketball champions, after defeating Crowther Memorial Junior High School in a tightly contested final 52-48. It's the first junior basketball banner for the Spartans. They lost in the zone final in 1985.
The Spartans opened up a 13-0 lead in the first quarter before the Strathmore-based school got on the board, trailing OHS 21-7 after the first quarter. Crowther closed the gap to 30-23 at the half. Down the stretch, the lead for the Spartans got as small as two points before they closed it out.
Following the game, coach Ron Miller said he was confident heading down to the final buzzer that the Spartans had a stronger bench and was hoping to tire out the Cougars.
“I got 12 athletes on my team and that's why we won the trophy this year because we were 12 better athletes,” he said.
Miller said he wasn't concerned after the first quarter's big lead started slowly shrinking, as long as the Spartans continued to battle.
While Carter Ciccell led the Spartans in scoring in both the final (18 points) and in the team's previous game against the Canmore Collegiate High School Crusaders (25), Miller said everyone on the team contributed to the Spartans claiming the championship this year. The Spartans beat the Crusaders 57-38. They opened the tournament with a 45-29 victory over the Brooks Composite High School Roadrunners.
“Our whole team competes all the time. Even if (players) only got in for 10 or 15 seconds or 30 seconds, everybody left everything on the floor,” he said.
Because there is no provincial tournament for Grade 9 basketball, this was a good cap to the season, Miller said.
“Next year, we'll start all over again. All these guys … go to the (senior varsity) team … and we get a brand new bunch of recruits from Deer Meadow (School),” he said.
As for the girls, they had a tough time of it, going 0-3 in the tournament, losing 32-29 to the John Paul II Collegiate Gryphons, 35-29 to the Canmore Collegiate High School Crusaders and 39-33 to the Brooks Composite High School Roadrunners.
“It's a very tight zone. When you look from (teams) one through eight, all the games (were) very close games,” said Kelvin Beaudry, the girls' co-coach.
Beaudry said in the first game against the Gryphons, it hinged on the last 30 seconds, while the loss against the Crusaders came down to the final minute of the game.
“We got ourselves into a little foul trouble during that game (against the Crusaders) and it kind of bit us,” he said.
Overall, Beaudry was happy with the players' efforts.
“The girls worked extremely hard. They were basically second year players, third year the odd one … we don't have a club program feeding us like some of the schools do. They had a lot of heart and a lot of hustle and I couldn't really ask more from them,” he said, noting that co-captains Nicole Schultz and Janelle Owens provided excellent leadership throughout the year.
Crowther beat John Paul II (Okotoks) in the girls final 46-21 to claim the zone title.
"I got 12 athletes on my team and that's why we won the trophy this year because we were 12 better athletes."Ron Miller, Grade 9 baskeball coach, OHS Spartans
