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Experience issues leading to challenging seasons for Ponoka Broncs

PSC senior basketball squads fall to Camrose Jan. 9
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Mathias Sandin goes up with a jumper between a pair of big Camrose players during the third quarter of the Ponoka Secondary Broncs senior boys contest, which left the locals on the down side of a 75-45 score Jan. 9. Photo by Jordie Dwyer

Challenging is one adjective to describe the seasons of the Ponoka Secondary Campus (PSC) Broncs senior basketball squads.

The Broncs played host to Camrose on Jan. 9 and ran into a pair of strong clubs — the girls falling 51-21 while the boys lost 75-45. Nadia Simons led the scoring for the girls with nine points, followed by Paisely Wilson with seven. On the boys’ side, Evret Fillinger was the only Broncs player to hit double digits, putting up 15, while Karson Mathieu was next with seven.

The girls are a rather young club and coach Cam Horan explained there remain some growing pains even as the club nears the halfway mark of the season.

“As a team, we are still trying to figure things out and trying to come together,” he said.

“With the inexperience comes a bit of a inherent timidness sometimes with the pace of senior varsity basketball. But we have played less than half our schedule, so we have a lot more growth to come. Until that happens, we are more reliant on a few experienced players to carry a larger responsibility.”

Horan added the biggest thing for the rest of the season is improving and learning regardless of the results.

“We have shown glimpses of strong play and teamwork at times, but we can’t seem to sustain it and we are definitely hoping to change that the rest of the season,” he said.

The girls hosted Rocky Mountain House last night (result unavailable) and will get another break from league play for final exams. However, the club will be putting in a lot of practice as well as heading to a tournament at the end of the month before a very busy February.

Broncs boys

Experience, while not as big an issue as the girls, is still something the boys need at the senior level as pointed out by head coach Scott Brown.

“The season has been tough so far and our focus is to keep working hard in every practice, every game,” he said.

However, experience wasn’t going to be enough against Camrose, who placed second at provincials last year.

“No games in this league are easy, but yes, Camrose definitely is a challenge. We kind of came out slow, but then (we) made it work before Camrose ultimately took control,” Brown stated.

“We are growing as a team with every game and get a step closer to our goals. The boys had some success in transition, but we shot the ball poorly, which makes it hard against the height Camrose has. The biggest thing we need to work on in practice is defense.”

The boys also played Rocky Mountain House last night (result unavailable) and will attend a few tournaments in hopes of gaining more experience before the season kicks back off in February.

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Ponoka’s Karson Mathieu tries to out duel a Camrose player for this rebound early in the third quarter of their game Jan. 9, which wound up with the Broncs falling 75-45. Photo by Jordie Dwyer
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Evret Fillinger stops quickly on this trip down the court in hopes of getting this three-point shot off before the Camrose defender can close the gap during the third quarter Jan. 9. Fillinger would wind up having the shot blocked in the Ponoka loss by 75-45. Photo by Jordie Dwyer