The royals took to their court Dec. 18, resulting in the St. Augustine Queens winning their basketball game while the boys fell just short of the same ending.
Both the senior Kings and Queens faced Delburne, with the girls finishing with a score of 39-34 and the boys with 58-38.
This year both are young teams; Queens coach Holly Maier says she has only three Grade 12 players and seven of her 15 are in Grade 10.
She and the Kings coach, Adam Bowie, say they aren’t looking for wins this season but want to work on improving the players, both with a focus on defence.
“We’re learning a new offence. Every game practice, it improves,” said Maier.
“They girls did very good. They played a strong defence and it’s usually defence that wins the game,” she added.
This was the girls’ fifth league game of the season and the first they won. Maier wasn’t expecting the win and it came as a nice surprise for the team.
In comparing notes before the game with Delburne’s coach, she found both teams had been beaten by the same other teams and they were evenly matched. “They had a lot of heart and hustle,” she said, referring to Delburne.
“They (Queens) fought until the very end,” she added. Maier says girls can have a tendency to turn on their own teammates during low points in a game and she was thrilled the Queens stayed positive, focusing on their plays and teamwork.
Bowie also thought his boys played hard until the end with a strong defence. “It was really good tonight. I thought we did a really good job denying the passers.”
“There was good intensity. They boys play strong whether they’re 20 up or 20 down,” he added.
This season he’s going to help the team work in the parts of the game they can control, such as defence, to dictate the game because offence can’t always be controlled. “Defence should always be on, we should always be 100 per cent.”
“We’re going the right direction,” he added.