A pair of wins on the weekend resulted in the Salmon Arm Secondary Junior Golds winning the North Zone basketball pennant. The team earned the right to host the Okanagan Valley championships on Feb. 21 and 22.
The Golds faced the Seaton Sonics on Friday, and put the game out of doubt early by leading 39-10 at half time. The Golds continued to play well in the second half and won 72-26.
Jordan Isaac and Josh Swidrovich finished with 13 points each to lead the scoring.
Up next for SAS was the Vernon Panthers.
Pressure defence was the key in the first quarter, as the Golds held the Panthers to two points. Vernon fought back to make the score 18-11 at the half. Salmon Arm exploded for 36 points in the second half, tightened their defence and cruised to a 56-19 victory. Norman Ambauen was dominating at both ends of the court and finished with 15.
Caden Holmes and Colby Thiessen came off the bench to spark the team and added nine points each.
The Golds will play their first game in the Okanagan championships at 11:30 on Friday, Feb. 21 at the Jackson campus.
Senior Golds
The SAS Senior Golds played their final exhibition tournament of the season at Kelowna Christian School this past weekend, finishing with one win and two losses.
In the first game, SAS fell to Okanagan Mission Secondary 79-50.
Offensive and defensive player of the game was Paul Beevor-Potts, who provided strong leadership and defence all game, while also chipping in 17 points.
In the second game, Kalamalka Secondary defeated SAS 65-57.
Offensive players were Jordan Hislop and Lenny DePatie who combined for 36 of the team’s 57 points. Defensive player was Stephen Kooistra.
In the third game, SAS doubled Osoyoos 110-55.
Offensive player of the game was Justin Puetz, who was a threat off the bench, and defensive player of the game was Brayden Koprowsky. Hislop put together back-to-back solid games, and scored 32 points.
Coach Rhys Waters said he felt good at tournament’s end.
“We are a young team, and some growing pains are expected. We did not put together a very good game against a good OKM team, and played a little better against Kal. Though the score was a blowout in our final game, I felt really good about where we finished up. Despite the score, we played hard and executed offensively and defensively. It was a great opportunity to get going offensively and work on fine tuning a couple things before finishing up our season.”
Waters said scoring remains top priority
“We never know who is going to be our leading scorer in any given game. While that’s not necessarily a problem, when we don’t have that one hot hand, we get ourselves into trouble. Holding Kal to 65 points is great, but only if we can score 66.”
