Toilers dominate on way to city championship
There’s a long-standing theory where the overall environment of the Moose Jaw high school basketball city championship will generally lead to lower offensive production from the teams involved – a bigger gym, the loud environment and increased pressure leads to defensively minded games.
Someone forgot to tell the Peacock Toilers, when they took the court for the 2018 championship against the Central Cyclones on Mar. 13.
The Toilers poured in 24 points in the first half and led 51-20 at halftime as they went on to an 86-33 victory at the Sask. Polytech gym, claiming their eighth title in as many years.
“We really wanted to come out strong and set the pace of the game,” said Toilers Grade 12 guard Kennedy Ward, who had five points in the early going before going down with a knee injury. “We knew it was going to be loud and we wanted to make sure we were playing well from the start... we played well as a team but we still know we have lots to improve on (going into regionals the following weekend).”
It’s hard to overstate just how dominant the Toilers were at points in the first half – their defence prevented Central from generating many open shots and in one stretch Peacock put together a 20-plus-point run to take control of the game. Cyclones coach Tiana Adams couldn’t help but be impressed with just how well the Toilers shot the ball, something that posed plenty of difficulty as Central tried to battle their way back into the game. “We prepared pretty well for what we thought Peacock would throw at us, but we never ended up running what we thought we needed to run or get into any of our systems,” Adams said. “So that really hurt us, that we didn’t execute when we needed to or recognize the defence they were playing at important times.
“On top of that, Peacock shot the lights out,” Adams added. “It’s hard to defend against a team that shoots that well and that kind of was the nail in the coffin.” Toilers Grade 11 guard Piper Ingalls led the way in that regard, scoring 15 points in the second half and 24 in the contest. Anna Maelde also had a standout game with 15 points, while three players – Katherine McDougall, Emily MacKenzie and Megan MacDonald – all scored eight. With the contest all but decided heading into the half, Peacock continued to work hard on defence with the goal of keeping sharp when it came to the regional tournament this weekend. That led the extraordinary stat of Central scoring only six points in the third quarter and seven in the fourth. “That’s been the whole thing for us all year, our offense starts on the defensive side of the ball,” McDougall said. “So we tried to get after it and the girls were really able to do that and keep control of the game... It’s a tough environment, it’s a loud gym and it can take a lot to settle down. You could tell that early on, but once we got some easy baskets and started to roll, one thing led to another. Then the whole team played well.”
Katie Coulson was Central’s leading scorer while Alexa Watterson picked up eight points.