Saints reach semis at Hoopla
REGINA — The Bishop James Mahoney Saints are marching into a 5A boys semifinal at Hoopla.
The Saints advanced by defeating Regina’s Luther College Lions 63-56 Thursday in opening-night action at the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association basketball championships.
“It was a good, hard-fought game,” Colin Fraser said after scoring a game-high 25 points for Mahoney at F.W. Johnson Collegiate. “A team hasn’t gone on (to the next round of the championship side) from our school in a long time, so it feels good.”
The Saints’ senior boys recorded their first Day 1 victory since 2008, when the team ended up capturing a provincial title.
Bishop Mahoney did not reach Hoopla in either of the next two years.
In 2011, the Saints opened with an 88-71 loss to Regina’s Balfour Redmen.
The Saints entered Hoopla 2012 as the top seed from Saskatoon, but ended up opening with a 98-76 loss to Regina’s Campbell Tartans.
Last year, Bishop Mahoney lost 69-59 to the Holy Cross Crusaders to begin Hoopla. The Regina teams were unable to make it to Saskatoon for Day 1 of Hoopla 2013 due to inclement weather.
However, the conditions were favourable for a Saints victory on Thursday.
“This is big for our school,” Fraser said. “We’re really excited. It’s great to promote basketball in the school.”
The Saints also promote a relentless style of play.
“We love to fly around,” Fraser said. “Everyone wants to go out and work their hardest. We shuffle through the lineup and that really helps, too.”
The Saints earned kudos from Jon Halvorson, who led Luther with 18 points.
“They’re a very talented team and they work hard,” Halvorson said. “We beat them in the (recent Luther Invitational Tournament), but they came out and outplayed us today, and that’s all that happened.”
In Thursday’s other early 5A boys game, Holy Cross defeated Balfour 84-73 on the strength of 21 points from Evan Boechler.
The scores of the late 5A boys games — pitting the Aden Bowman Bears against the LeBoldus Golden Suns and Campbell against the Evan Hardy Souls — were unavailable at press deadline.
Saskatoon teams tasted defeat in both of Thursday’s early 5A girls games.
LeBoldus edged Evan Hardy 60-57 and Campbell beat Aden Bowman 72-56. Katie Farmer led Aden Bowman with 18 points.
In the late games, the St Joseph Guardians faced the Riffel Royals and Holy Cross tipped off against the Winston Knoll Wolverines.
The championship-side semifinals start Friday at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., at Winston Knoll Collegiate (5A girls) and Miller High School (5A boys).
The provincial 5A finals are set for Saturday at 5 p.m. (girls) and 7 p.m. (boys) at Miller.
Competition in all other divisions — 1A to 4A boys’ and girls’ — starts Friday and continues through Saturday at the 35th annual Hoopla.