Sports | DrumhellerMail

Momentum continues to build for DVSS Dynos

    The Drumheller Valley Secondary School Dynos are tearing through the competition early in their season.
   Over the past two weeks, the team has finished strong in two tournaments and added another win to their regular season.
   Two weekends ago the Dynos hosted a tournament at DVSS. In that, they placed third against some tough teams,
   “We won our first and third games by quite a bit, and only lost our second game against Acme by five points,” said head coach Jennifer Raugust. “The girls had a lot of fun. Especially our last game was really good, because all the girls got to play quite a lot.
   Last weekend, the Dynos then headed to Acme for a tournament against Acme, Cochrane, and the St. Anthony’s School Sabres, where they placed third again.
   “We played very well. We played Cochrane, which is a 3A team and really good, our girls were down by ten for most of the game,” said Raugust. “The girls played really well and rose to the occasion, especially against Cochrane.”
   The Dynos then followed up on their success in the league, by racking up a 60-36 win against Prairie Christian Academy last week.
   The team will be taking a break until the New Year. When gearing up for the remainder of the season, they will be working to improve their game. Raugust highlighted rebounding under the hoop and making their shots as the top priorities.
   “It’s the beginning of the season, so there’s a lot of things we still need to work on. We need to make the basic things instinctive, so we can then move on to the harder things,” said Raugust. “But, they’re doing really good and improving really quickly.”

Young Sabres squad sharpen their game

    The St. Anthony’s senior girls Sabres are taking a break for the holidays after only three short weeks on court.
   The relatively young team, which consists mostly of Grade 10 students, is working hard to develop their skills and have a great season.
   The Sabres took on a strong squad from Prairie Christian Academy (PCA) and came away with a 48-26 loss.
   The game was close for the most part. It wasn’t until the final quarter that PCA was able to ratchet up the score.
   “It was not a bad game. It was really close for the first three quarters, but in the last they pulled away,” said Chloe Grant, head coach of the senior girls Sabres. “We could’ve beat them, but a few things fell apart.”
   Despite the loss, the game offered a good chance to see where the team is at and where they need to go for the rest of the season.
   “After the half time they improved on the rebounds and aggression. Our offense had to step up their game quite a bit. Prairie Christian is a fast team, so we had to work a lot on dribbling the ball down the court, setting up screens, and helping the post guards,” said Grant.
   “We’re going to be working on shooting, defensive strategies. We’re a really young team and we’ve only had four practices, so there are a few things we have to smooth out. Working cohesively is probably the biggest thing, because we just haven’t had a lot of time together yet.”
   The Sabres were in Acme last Wednesday, but the Redmen proved to be tough opponents. They were in Acme again over the weekend for a tournament where they faced stiff competition against teams from Acme, Cochrane, and Drumheller Valley Secondary School.
   “There were amazing teams there, but we basically have a JV [junior varsity] team. It’s a foundation year,” said Grant. “They’re getting better at running a zone defence, we have a strong point guard [in Bailey Faubion], and working on being more assertive under the hoop.”
   The Sabres will be taking a break for the holidays, but will return in the new year and will be gearing up for their own tournament at St. Anthony’s School in early January.

The ladies of the Sabres seniors girls basketball team are gearing up for a great season. The team consists of coach Melissa Dionisio (back, left), Jaiden Lal, Sam Hirsch, Stepanie Hirsch, Meaghan Peters, coach Chloe Grant, Rebecca Graf (front), Bailey Faubion, Alex Cassesl, and Dianne Importa (missing).

Saint boys and girls win Bronze at home tourney

    The St. Anthony’s junior high boys and girls Saint basketball teams hosted their second annual invitational tournament and they went home with bronze medals.
   The Saints were in basketball action on Friday and Saturday as the teams hosted Stettler, Three Hills and Rundle Academy of Calgary at their home tourney.
   The junior high girls Saints came out strong and in their second game of the season dealt convincing blow to Three Hills winning 56- 8.
   Their second game on Friday was versus Stettler and they were down 32-18 but in the fourth quarter managed to come back and cut the lead to two, but that was as close as they could get, losing 38-34.
   Their final game with Rundle Academy was on Saturday and Rundle Academy had a strong player that was hard to stop. The Saints hung close for a while, but Rundle took over winning 40-26.
   “They (Rundle) were the best team of the tournament, and we won third place,” said coach Gavin Makse.
   Jay Mulgrew’s junior high boys team were also in action. Their first game was against Three Hills but they were not able to take the win. They did come up stronger in their second game versus Stettler and went home for the night with a win.
   Just like the girls on Saturday Rundle Academy proved to be the strongest team at the tournament and they defeated the Saints. Rundle won the tournament, Three Hills finished second and the St. Anthony’s Saints finished in third place.

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