With the end of the season in sight, the Kwalikum Kondors senior boys basketball team took care of the Wellington Wildcats last Wednesday night in a tune–up for their final league game against the Barsby Bulldogs this Thursday.
Taking on the AAA Wildcats (Nanaimo) in an exhibition game, the Kondors were able to hold their own against the number three-ranked AAA team on Vancouver Island, jumping out to a 12-2 lead early in the first quarter and never looking back. The Kondors would go on to win by a score of 53-44.
“It was a good game for us against a good team,” head coach Butch Gayton said. “It’s nice to see that we were able to force them to get out of playing man to man defense against us and move to a zone defense, that means we’re doing a lot of good things when that has to happen for a team and that’s what we want to see.”
The Kondors have two league games this week, tonight (Tuesday) at Woodlands (Nanaimo) and then on Thursday against the Barsby Bulldogs at home. It’s been a good year for the Kondors overall and they will be looking to close in and win their second straight league title on Thursday night.
“It’s been a good year for us all together,” Gayton said. “We’ve found a few things that we could improve and being able to work on that has helped us out greatly. The nice thing about it all is that we feel we haven’t quite reached our full potential just yet as a team. Heading in to the playoffs, we’re hoping to be at that point and firing on all cylinders at the most important time of the season.”
Having been ranked in the top 10 in the province at one point in the season, the Kwalikum Secondary Kondors have been knocking on the door of those rankings all season long at the AA level.
“These guys have been working hard all season,” Gayton said. “They’ve come a long way from last year, with our group of Grade 12’s having been in Grade 11 last year and learning what they did.”
“It’s the same for our Grade 11’s this year, they get to see what senior basketball is all about and they get to learn a few things from the Grade 12’s. We’re a team that’s worked hard and played consistent for the majority of our season and we’re confident that we can keep that up.”
The confidence will play a big part in being able to get past the North Islands for the Kondors, who have played well against their league this season and will look for more of the same come playoff time.
“We’re starting to feel a lot more confident in what we’re doing,” Gayton said.
“These guys weren’t feeling that way earlier on in the season, having to go through some tough times as a team. But they’ve come a long way and now they feel like they can really make some noise come playoff time.”
