St. Augustine Kings had a close call against the Rimbey Spartans last week.
The New Year for the Kings went well against the Rimbey Spartans Jan. 8 at home with a 63-57 win. It could have turned out badly for the Kings, however, as the Spartans came back from a deficit in the second half.
“The boys started off really great,” explained coach Adam Bowie.
Starting the second quarter with a 34-11 lead against the Spartans may have contributed to the team becoming over confident.
”After the first, Rimbey started to adjust to our press and our boys started to get to comfortable and stopped playing as hard as they did to start the game,” said Bowie.
“We started to ‘go through the motions’ and didn’t have an urgency any longer.”
He pointed out that while Rimbey made some minor changes to its offense and defence, those adjustments gave them a leg up against the Kings.
One disadvantage of the Kings is that the players are shorter than other teams.
“We have learned to focus on our strengths of speed/quickness and defensive pressure,” explained Bowie.
“We are still working on staying consistent with defensive pressure,” he added.
The second half started rough. In the break Bowie pointed out that a 20-point lead isn’t much when it comes to turnarounds.
“Five quick baskets and they’re back in the game. That is exactly what happened,” said Bowie.
“The boys learned a lot about what it means about playing a 40 minute game instead of just 20 or 30 minutes.”
The game in Penhold the next night went well with the Kings winning 66-38. It was similar to the contest against Rimbey, said Bowie, except the team kept up the pressure.
“We were able to work on some offensive systems in this game,” he explained.
As for the league, the Kings sit second with only one game behind the Ponoka Secondary Campus Broncs.
jeff.heyden-kaye@ponokanews.com
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