A long holiday break was just the ticket for the Ponoka Secondary Campus (PSC) Broncs senior girls basketball team.
And that ticket got punched on the weekend, as the hosts made it to the final of their annual Swoosh tournament on Jan. 14. Unfortunately for the Broncs, the officials got in the way of a good game versus Morinville, making the 62-45 loss a far larger margin than it should’ve been.
For his part though, head coach Cam Horan didn’t place any blame, acknowledging that Morinville is a well-coached squad.
“That showed quite early in the game,” Horan pointed out. “They took the lead and never relinquished it.”
The Broncs were down 11 points at half time, but were unable to get any closer, especially considering two of his top players — Nadia Simons and Leanne Wiancko — fouled out early in the fourth quarter on some questionable calls. Wiancko led the way with 16 points, followed by Megan Bolton with 13.
“We were just not being able to hit all the great open opportunities that we got. But, the girls didn’t quit the entire game, which makes a coach just as proud as winning at times” he added.
What also made Horan pleased was how the girls made it to the final, holding off Sylvan Lake in the opener Jan. 13 to win 34-31 then beating Eckville 46-35 the next morning.
“The girls took control and were right where we wanted to be at the end of the game (against Sylvan),” he said.
“In the morning, we played a physically strong Eckville team that gave us some trouble in the paint. But by the third quarter, we started to figure things out and started to pull ahead.”
Dakotah Nichols led the Broncs over Sylvan with seven points, with both Simons and Wiancko each netting six points. In the win over Eckville, it was nearly all Simons and Wiancko, depositing 14 and 13 points respectively.
League play
The tournament was simply the conclusion to a busy week for the Broncs, who came off the holiday break and had to face a strong Wetaskiwin club on Jan. 10 then hit the road to play Sylvan Lake on Jan. 12.
“It was our busiest week yet and it proved to be a bit more than we were ready for,” Horan said.
Wetaskwin plowed through the Broncs to win by 20-plus, but the girls showed their defensive strengths two nights later falling by just two in Sylvan Lake after being down by 17 at half time.
“We had a week that started with a low, but finished with an extremely great weekend making us more ready for the rest of the season,” he said.
The Broncs played host to Rocky Mountain House last night (Jan. 17), but the result was unavailable at press time. The team now has two weeks off for exams before hitting the court in a tournament in Morinville in early February.