Dave Leaderhouse
Special to the Herald
Fast starts are important in any sporting event and the St. Mary Marauders couldn’t have hoped for anything better after they jumped out to an early 10-0 lead and then cruised to a 94-48 decision over Meadow Lake in their opening game of the annual St. Mary Senior Boys Invitational Basketball Tournament on Friday.
“I thought there might be some nerves with the big crowd, but it was a nice way to get started,” admitted St. Mary head coach Dave Seto. “We had a couple of guys out, but others stepped up. We got everybody in.”
Kyeran Murphy led all shooters with 27 points for the Marauders while Isaiah Acero had 15 and Nash Noble had 10. Leading the way for Meadow Lake was Brett Ackerman with 13 points.
St. Mary, which had a first-round bye in the 12-team event, will take on either Evan Hardy from Saskatoon or Balgonie in semi-final action on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Evan Hardy easily got past Moose Jaw Peacock 93-69 in their opening match while Balgonie outscored Lloydminster 77-60 in their first-round tilt. The Evan Hardy-Balgonie contest was scheduled for later on Friday.
“It’s a pretty deep tournament,” said Seto. “This time of year it’s nice to play someone new.”
The other semi-final game, which is scheduled for a 12 p.m. start on Saturday, will feature Saskatoon Bethlehem against either North Battleford Composite or John Paul II, also out of North Battleford. The gold-medal game will be played on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with the bronze-medal match preceding that at 6 p.m.
Noticeably absent from the draw are the Carlton Crusaders, who took a leave of absence from this event to participate in an invitational tournament in Edmonton this weekend.
Consolation semi-finals were to be played late Friday with Warman going up against Estevan in one contest while Meadow Lake and Moose Jaw Peacock were set to do battle in the other game.
The St. Mary tournament is part of a busy schedule for Saskatchewan High School Athletic Association teams with schools from across the province taking turns to host their respective tournaments. All of this is in preparation for the provincial playdowns with regional qualifiers set for mid-March and HOOPLA slated for the end of March, this time in Moose Jaw.
