High School Basketball season is under way in Prince Albert and the St. Mary Marauders senior girls’ team had the chance to open at home with the Kelly Smith Memorial Tournament.
The team has a new coach with Lance Bashutsky replacing longtime coach Dwayne Gareau. Bashutsky said that he is new to coaching girls basketball, but not the sport itself. He is embracing the opportunity to coach the Marauders.
“It’s awesome. It’s an exciting opportunity, (I’m) here to have fun and things are good.”
The team dropped to the consolation final in their home tournament but Bashutsky said the early season is a time for growth.
“We’ve only had two games so far and there’s a lot of ways to get better and keep growing,” Bashutsky said.
The Marauders claimed the Consolation title with a 52-51 win over the Weyburn Eagles on Saturday afternoon. Bashutsky said it was nice to open with the home tournament.
“There are a lot of things to do to get settled, but also I think things are going well,” Bashutsky said.
The Marauders opened the Kelly Smith Memorial with a 49-41 loss to the Wynyard Bears on Friday afternoon. In the Friday evening game they dropped to the consolation bracket with a 70-43 loss to the eventual B Side champion Lloydminster Barons.
The Marauders have several strengths according to their coach.
“We’re fast,” he said. “I think we’re athletic. I think just coming together as a team (is important). These are 12 girls that really haven’t played together, so I think that’s something that we just need to work on.”
The team is composed of four Grade 12 players, five Grade 10 players and three Grade 11 players.
Two of those four Grade 12s are point guard Lily Nagy and post Meghan Cantin. Cantin said that the team is going to improve as the season progresses.
“I think we’re all slowly coming together as a team,” she said. “We just have this really good positive and bright energy and I can see it’s going really far.”
“We’re all pretty young, so a few more games and we’ll be pretty good, I think,” Nagy added.
Cantin said that Bashutsky was doing a great job filling Gareau’s shoes. They said the new coach provided great energy.
“He’s really nice, he’s very kind and he gives us good instructions,” Cantin said. “I can just tell we’re going to like go far with this team and it’s going to be a great season.”
Both Cantin and Nagy said work ethic is going to be key this season. They expect the team to give their best each week.
“Just giving it your all on the court for sure, every game,” Nagy said.
“Just being there for each other, I feel like is another big thing,” Cantin added.
Both Nagy and Cantin said that the season would be fun.
Bashutsky also expected the team to improve each week.
“Get better every week, every game, just improve, improve to the end of the season,” he said.
He added that the goal is always the same at the end of the season with Hoopla.
“Of course we want to win,” Bashutsky said.
Despite finishing on the consolation side Bashutsky saw a lot of aspects of the player’s game that he liked.
“It’s the first tournament of the year. We’ve got lots of tournaments to go,” he said.
He added that he knew he had big shoes to fill in replacing Gareau.
“Dwayne has been at it for years and years and for me to step into the role is kind of big shoes to fill. He certainly helped me along the way and lots of other coaches have helped.
Bashutsky joined the staff at St. Mary in 2019 and is originally from Wynyard. He played defensive back for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies.
“I’ve been teaching at the school, but I have more of a football background,” he said.
Bashutsky said he was happy to take on the challenge of coaching basketball.
“Challenges are good,” he said.
The team’s next tournament is at St. Joseph in Saskatoon for the Guardians Invitational beginning Thursday.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
