St. Mary’s and TCHS team up for hoops

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

St. Mary’s and Taber Christian High have assembled a combined basketball team for the season, and it’s game on. 

Sam DeBoer is the head coach and the assistants are Jaydee DeBoer and Carolyn Siemens. The joint program gives students from both schools an opportunity to compete in league play. On Dec. 8, assistant coach Siemens gave an update. 

“We had our first game this week, traveling to Foremost to play. We won the game 54 – 21, and we weren’t sure what to expect. We had only had one practice, since a few of the players were still playing volleyball leading into the season. We came out strong in the first half and were able to take a lead of 30-8. We struggled a bit in the third quarter to find our shot, but picked it up in the fourth quarter to finish the game strong.” 

She said Logan Meier led the team with 15 points, while Hailey Peters and Jayda Sierra both chipped in with eight each. Meier had a strong game on the boards rebounding 15, and Nyla DeBoer had ten. Their home opener against Vauxhall goes Dec. 12 at 6 p.m.

On Dec. 8 and 9, the Big Storm tournament went as scheduled. It was a five school competition between St. Mary’s, Barnwell, St. Joe’s Coaldale, Milk River, and St. Joseph’s Collegiate-Brooks. Barnwell won the tournament and second place went to St. Joseph’s.

The JV Storm boys basketball team also played over the weekend and won the consolation final at the R.I. Baker tournament in Coaldale. Siemens explained that basketball tournaments that are ‘eight team Oregon-style’ have a championship final and a consolation final. Consolation final winners are technically fourth place finishers in the tournament; teams that took a loss in their first game and then won the next two games.

The junior high boys have a home game on Thursday Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. with the SV team to follow at 5:30 p.m. Siemens dispelled the confusion about team names and the athletic alliance by saying, “The Taber Christian girls are only playing on the high school girls team, which is the Auroras. The St. Mary’s high school team for girls is Auroras and boys is Celtics. All of our junior high teams go by Storm.”