Ucluelet saw plenty of basketball over the weekend.
In preparation to host the Vancouver Island championships on Feb. 22, 23, and 24, the Warriors girls and boys basketball teams crammed in nine practice games in two days against away teams Maaqtusiis and Chemainus.
On the senior boys side, the Warriors crushed the Chemainus Cougars 72-35 in a friendly lunchtime match up on Friday.
Saturday night, the senior boys Warriors went on to win a close rivalry game against Maaqtusiis 53-46.
“This is what we’ve been working for all year. It just feels good,” said number 22 Isiah David right after the win.
“It shows we are going to go far. This is the same stuff we’ve been working on since Grade 8,” said the Grade 12 student.
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The score went neck-and-neck for most of the game. After the first quarter buzzer it was 15-14 for USS. At halftime it was 30-29 for Maaqtusiis.
It wasn’t until the tail end of the fourth quarter that the Warriors broke away with four unanswered points to seal the victory.
“It slipped away,” said Maaqtusiis player Vincent Frank. “We weren’t being good on defence. We had a few missed plays. We could have had the game but we weren’t working on defence.”
Regardless of the loss, Frank said the last-minute tournament was a good experience, and is ready for the Island championships at the end of February.
“We’re just going to go play our game like how we play at home. Every court is just another court,” said Frank.
David said to watch for the Warriors at the Island championships.
“This [win] puts me in the highest mindset I could have. It gives us a huge boost of confidence,” he said. “We’ve had like I’d 10 games in a row were we are all just playing great. We are still improving. I just want to go far this year.”
On the senior girls side, Maaqtusiis and USS took one game a piece during the friendly tourney with Maaqtusiis defeating USS 67-37 on Friday and USS claiming the win 42-38 on Saturday.
In the junior division, Maaqtusiis junior boys defeated the USS junior boys in both exhibition games.
