TCHS Lions girls basketball achieve strong showing at weekend tournament

Submitted by Carolyn Siemens

After returning to play from the Christmas break the Taber Christian Lions came out ready to play. Their first game back was Jan. 7 when they hosted Winston Churchill. The girls came out strong with great defense against Churchill and were able to hold them to less than ten points in each quarter. They took the win 79-24, showing good offense throughout the game. Logan Meier led scoring with 21 points, Iya Hoekstra added 16, followed by Irena Kuypers with 13 and Kennedy Planger with 12. As a team we had great rebounding out of all the girls with all of them on the boards. Hoekstra led with nine and Planger and Nyla DeBoer grabbed eight each.  McKenzie Siemens had eight assists and Kuypers had four blocks. Their record for league play is now 3 and 1.

On the weekend the team travelled to Calgary for the Heritage Christian Invitational Tournament. Heading into Calgary is fun as you get to play teams that you typically don’t play and this tournament is geared to 2A teams which are good out of zone matchups for us. Our first game on Jan. 10 was against Webber Academy from Calgary. Once again the Lions played great defense against Webber keeping them to less than five points each quarter. We took an early lead and were able to control the game for the 79-13 win. Kuypers led scoring for us with 16 points, Hoekstra added 15 and DeBoer added 14. Kuypers led the boards with 16 and DeBoer grabbed 12. Hoekstra had seven assists in the game.

Saturday we played J.C. Charyk from Hanna in the semi final game. The girls were excited to be playing on the Championship side of the tournament. We were able to play consistently for the entire game on both ends and won the game 69-21 securing ourselves a spot in the Championship game. This was a pretty physical game for the girls and they were able to handle it well. Kuypers led scoring with 15, Hoekstra added 13 and Nancy Rempel had 12. Kuypers was great on the boards again with 18 rebounds, Hoekstra had 11 and Planger grabbed 10.

In the Championship game we met Clearwater Academy from Calgary. Clearwater stayed with us in the first quarter but as the game progressed we were able to widen the gap and took the win 71-26. Kuypers had a game high 21 points for us in the win and Meier added 14. Kuypers is really strong in the key for us and works hard on both ends. She also led rebounds with 17, Meier had nine and both Hoekstra and Rempel grabbed eight. Hoekstra also had eight assists and McKenzie Siemens earned tournament all star for the Lions.

The Lions were back in action on Tuesday at Chinook High School for a Deep South League game.