The gallery at Christ King Catholic School was packed with family, friends, and basketball aficionados on Wednesday, Jan. 25 as the school played host to both the boys’ and girls’ teams from Big Valley School.
The girls took to the court first, with the home team’s light blue versus Big Valley’s dark blue. The game was close with both teams taking the lead throughout the match, but the Big Valley girls in the end took the victory 45-24.
“It’s a building year for the girls,” Big Valley coach Charlee Mappin said. It’s Mappin’s first year coaching the girls. “We have a number of younger girls coming up this year that we need to rely on.”
Even though the team is building, Mappin said that the games so far this season, for the most part, have been reasonably close.
“Our focus now is on the basic basketball skill sets and communication,” she said.
Abbey Bohn, the Christ King girls’ assistant coach, said that the team is improving because they are “becoming more confident in the game itself.”
Bohn added, “At the beginning of the season, there were kids who had never played basketball before and were quite terrified of stepping on the court. Over the past few games, they have been getting more and more courageous.”
Christ King boys triumph
Christ King’s boys team faced the boys from Big Valley next, leading to a narrow home victory of 38-28.
The game remained close until the fourth quarter, when the Chargers took the lead and pulled away from Big Valley.
Christ King Coach Megan Lozeau said her team was starting to really come together.
“Their communication has improved on both defence and offence,” she said. It’s that growth that led the team to victory over Big Valley.
Now that the team has come together, practices are starting to focus on more offence-focused skills.
“In addition to the basic basketball skills, we are working on further developing our offence so we can cleanly execute plays.”
Lozeau said she was very proud of how the team played, noting that they kept up a solid defence and stayed calm, even when things weren’t going their way.
“They made great decisions as the fourth quarter unfolded and pulled ahead by the end of the game,” she said.