By Shannon Hill, Blue Hill, and Ashley Buck
We traveled to Sault Ste. Marie this past weekend to participate in the Ontario Native Basketball Invitational tournament held in Sault Ste Marie. Teams all across Ontario competed in this high caliber tournament, teams came from as far as Moose Factory.
Majority of this team is 16&17yrs old and never even played organized basketball and it was our first time playing together as a team but yet they went into this tournament making a name for themselves.
First game Friday at 8pm we played Treaty 3 Ogiichidaag, a team that we knew would be strong and experienced. Our guys gave up a good battle, we made nothing easy and played hard. Unfortunately the Treaty 3 team was more experienced and won the game 60-48, losing by 12 points to a team that ended up in the Championship game, I say we held our own and did very well.
Our second game was Saturday morning at 8am against Wolfpack a team that traveled all the way from Moose Factory. Our boys tried hard to run the other team down but being in foul trouble early on in the game slowed our game down. The boys fought until the end and we lost by only 4 points the score was 60-56.
Third game on Saturday at 3:30pm against Walpole Island we dominated the entire game winning 48-34 we played as a team and ran hard. Top scorers that game were Dylan John with 14points, Jordan Mt. Pleasant 14points and everyone on the team scored at least once. It was a great team effort.
Fourth game was to determine 9th place we played North Shore. We finished the tournament strong by winning 55-29. The team really start moving the ball, Avery Steinbach-Parker had great passes, Brooklyn Davis dominated with rebounds, Will Jacobs had a couple 3’s and many drives to the net by Damian John and Anthony Sandy. Sterling Ryan led the team with 17points and Dylan John with 14 points. We placed 9th out of 12 teams. We are very proud of the young group of men and we are very confident they will get better each game together! Next tournament will be in Mid-November TBD.
Aside from all the basketball news, we had the opportunity to take a hike on the Garden River reservation, a great team building hike that included building a inukshuk.
We had a great time this weekend and we would like to thank everyone for all their support and a special thanks to McLean’s Consulting for the donation so that our team looked good with brand new jerseys.
Shannon Hill Blue Hill Ashley Buck