The St. Anthony’s JV Sabres basketball team took home gold at their home tournament over the weekend.
    The 16th annual Sabres Invitational Tournament went on Friday and Saturday, January 10 and 11. The Sabres invited teams from Wheatland Crossing, Acme, Duchess, Prairie Christian Academy, Didsbury, Bashaw, and Airdrie.
    It was a competitive tournament. The Sabres defeated Wheatland Crossing with a score of 78-28. They went on to play Duchess where they rallied to a 61-48 win.
    This put them in the final against Bashaw. It was a back and forth game through the first half. In the third quarter, the Sabres opened up a lead. Bashaw fought until the end and closed the gap, but the Sabres won 66-58.
    Sabres coach Chris Curtis is proud of how his team played.
    “The nice thing was they had to adjust their strategies every game. Every team was different and every game was close except our first game,” said Curtis. “The whole team played well, and they all did a good job of doing their part, which is what a good team should do.”
    The team continued in league play this week.

    
The senior boys Dynos basketball team played hard at their home tournament and took home a bronze medal.
    The Dynos hosted an eight-team tournament and the competition was fierce.
    The Dynos, coached by James Fournier and William Belliveau, faced Bassano in their first game and took a close 65-62 win.
    This put them up against Holy Cross Collegiate of Strathmore, but fell 69-60. This put them in the bronze medal game to take on Notre Dame Collegiate from High River.
    After getting down by 20 points the team rallied in the second half to win 77-72.
    “It was one of the biggest comebacks I’ve ever seen in high school level basketball,” said coach Belliveau.  
    Senior point guard and captain Darian Dart was named tournament MVP.
    It has been a tough start for the young team in league play, but they are making progress.
    “We are a very young team which is good and bad. Our level of competition has been amazing this year and we have been able to find ourselves in close games often, the drawback is that we’ve lacked experience to win these games through the first half of the season. This last weekend has put us winning these games and that looks very promising for the rest of the season,” said Belliveau.
    With a young team, he says there is a big transition between the junior high and the high school game.
    “The game from Jr high to the Sr high level has a significant jump in skill, physicality, and size. A lot of our players are coming from where they were the go-to guy on their teams last year to where they are learning how to play a role and be effective in that position,” he said.
    “This weekend hopefully being somewhat of a crystal ball for the rest of the season we should finish strong and be very competitive in league.”