The Estevan Comprehensive School Elecs senior boys basketball team returned to the Hoopla provincial basketball tournament for the first time since 1994, and came away with one win in three games.
Competing in the 5A boys division with three teams from each of Saskatoon and Regina, as well as Lloydminster Comprehensive, Estevan finished sixth in the eighth team tournament.
Seeded eighth, ECS opened the tournament with a 75-59 loss to the top-seeded Saskatoon St. Joseph team. The Elecs were down 27-14 after the first quarter and 51-25 at half-time, but recovered in the second half, outscoring St. Joseph 34-24 in the second half.
“There were a lot of nerves with the big game,” said head coach Carmon Lindquist. “We got down in the first half by a fair little bit, but in the second half, when everything settled, we played right with them. It was a good game.”
John Anders scored 24 points for Estevan, while Clark Cabiluna added 14.
Lindquist believes their play in the second half against St. Joseph continued over to their next game against another Saskatoon team, Walter Murray Collegiate – a game ECS won 74-55.
The Elecs raced out to a 24-10 lead after the first quarter, and led 42-23 at half-time. Each team registered 32 points in the second half.
“It was everything that we hoped we would be able to do going into Hoopla,” said Lindquist.
Anders had 25 points, while Francois Adaya put up 18 and Jack McGeough finished with 17.
Their final game was an 89-75 loss to Regina Luther. Estevan trailed 19-1 at one point in the first quarter, but fought back to make the score 25-18 by the end of the stanza, and 42-33 at half-time. At one point, it was a four-point game.
Regina pulled away to lead 66-53 after three quarters.
“Luther basically had two guys who did the bulk of their scoring. One had 34 points, and the other had 33 points. If we had seen the team earlier in the year, we likely would have known and set up a little bit differently to deal with the offensive power of shutting those two guys down.”
Anders was once again the top scorer with 18 points, while Adaya racked up 13.
While they turned the ball over more than they wanted during provincials, Lindquist said they played well as a team, moved the ball well and found the open lanes during Hoopla.
“We played well defensively. We had a couple of times where we got caught a little bit on the fast breaks and gave up some easy buckets, but overall we played very strong defensively. We forced a lot of turnovers on other teams as well, including their guards, and got hands in the lanes.”
Lindquist said the Elecs proved they belong against the best teams in the province, as they competed with the top team and defeated the fifth seed.
“It was still just a great experience to be there and play at that level,” said Lindquist.
Team manager Stacy Dutka is well-versed in being part of Hoopla, as she had been there on several occasions, but with the senior girls team. She said it was different watching more boys games this time than girls games, but the experience was still great.
“It’s just so nice to give an experience like that to a group of young men,” said Dutka.
Five members of the Elecs will graduate this year. Three of them are starters. Lindquist believes the experience will help the returning players.
“Once you’ve seen and played at that level, it just provides so much motivation and drive to want to get back there again, and improve and play at that level,” said Lindquist. “It’s just a great experience, and it will help them immensely.”
Dutka was pleased the players realized that even though they’re from the southeast corner of the province, they could beat a big-city squad.
“We never got blown out. We won a game against a Saskatoon school. Every game was often single digits right down to the end. They’d pull away from us but we would catch up.”
Dutka agrees that the experience should be beneficial.
“It’s easy to set a goal of making it to Hoopla, but they didn’t know what that even meant,” said Dutka. You don’t even know what your goal is because you don’t know what Hoopla is. It’s just unique in Saskatchewan high school sports.”
