The St. Mary’s Auroras girls basketball team’s home tournament served as a measuring stick with where the team needs to be as it prepares to host 1A girls basketball provincials.
The team at least looks to be getting there in a finals appearance and a 61-47 loss to powerhouse St. Michael’s Dragons from Pincher Creek.
“If anyone is going to give Foremost a run this year it will be St. Mike’s. They are a contender come provincial time,” said Terence Hochstein, head coach of the St. Mary’s Auroras girls basketball team. “I don’t mind losing to my alma mater, if I have to lose it might as well be to them. That is the closest anyone as come to beating them so far this year.”
Chalsea Kerner had 14 points and Carly Perry had 13 points. Jen Wilson chipped in 12 points.
“We wanted to keep with them. But we had a really poor first quarter where I think we were nervous and we couldn’t stay focused. That was the tale, we played a good 30 minutes instead of 40 and you can’t do that against a team that is that good,” said Hochstein.
“Carly got into a little bit of foul trouble in the first quarter with three fouls right off the beginning of the game and that hurt her. Once she re-adjusted to the play she was good.”
Auroras reached its home-tournament final by dispatching Clearwater from Calgary 43-33.
“They are a team that is at provincials every year. They had one young lady in Grade 10 that ability wise, offensive wise she is probably 70 per cent of that team. She is their leader,” said Hochstein. “The game before she scored 24 points and we used the box-and-one on her and put Heather Knibb on her the whole game and we contained her to seven points. Heather did an amazing job, she had an assignment and she fulfilled it.”
Kerner had 17 points with Wilson scoring eight points for the Auroras. Knibb chipped in with seven points.
The Auroras shook off the cobwebs from a long layoff from basketball in an opening-game 56-44 win over Heritage Christian from Calgary.
“We were rusty, it was the Christmas-season rust. It took awhile to get going, but it turned out OK. You could tell we hadn’t played ball in three weeks, but it was an overall team effort,” said Hochstein.
Wilson and Kerner both had 19 points apiece and Perry had 12 points.
Hochstein was pleased to see six players hit the scoresheet in two of the Auroras games and seven players score in another for a team effort. The Auroras set a goal before the tournament to outscore its opponent every quarter. The Auroras were able to do that nine out of the 12 quarters.
“If you can consistently outscore your opponent in the quarter, you are going to have some success,” said Hochstein. “It was a good tournament. For the final and the third-place game the stands were full and it’s been a long time since that has happened. It was good to see the support from the community and the school.”
The Auroras host today at 6 p.m. at St. Mary’s gym with the St. Mary’s Celtics boys basketball team to follow at 8 p.m. The Auroras have the weekend off and then have finals break before a Milk River tournament Jan. 25 weekend.