The St. Mary Marauders Senior Girl's basketball team won their season opening tournament last weekend. (submitted photo/Dwayne Gareau)

By Nolan Kowal

Tip off

Marauders on top early as basketball season tips off in P.A.

Dec 6, 2023 | 4:00 PM

Basketball season is underway in Prince Albert, and it was a good start to the year for the St. Mary Marauders Senior Girl’s team.

The Marauders won their home tournament, which took place at Ecole St. Mary High School this past weekend.

“It was a positive weekend for a few reasons,” said Head Coach Dwayne Gareau. “One, obviously it’s nice to finish on top, but two it’s nice just to get the season underway and see what we’re going to be, basically the feeling this year for our team and the girls jelled quite well and worked well this weekend.”

Gareau, who is in his 19th year coaching at St. Mary, cautioned the strong start doesn’t mean much in the long run.

“To start 3-0 is a good start but it’s really nothing to get too excited about,” he said. The season…we’ll call it a marathon and it’s far from a sprint. The basketball season’s a long season with a couple of breaks in there. So it was nice to get a few wins under our belt, but there’s a long way to go, lots of things to work on.”

Court proceedings

'The impact of this trauma will echo for generations': court case surrounding La Ronge woman's death reaches conclusion

11h ago

Going Global

P.A.'s Zablocki named to Team Canada for U18 Women's World Championships

11h ago

Election 2024

Birch Hills staff won't share election decision

12h ago

The St. Mary Seniors Girls qualified for provincials the last two years and hope to achieve that again this season.

“The expectations are ideally if we can get back to Hoopla and hopefully put ourselves in a position to play for a medal game,” Gareau said. “The last two years we lost out without getting an opportunity. So we’re hoping to get back to Hoopla this year and give ourselves the best opportunity we can to try to shape ourselves up for a medal game.”

Meanwhile, the St. Mary Senior Boys team also began their season this past weekend, losing in the bronze medal game at Carlton High School’s tournament.

Like the girls team, the St. Mary boys team is also coming off back to back seasons of qualifying for Hoopla.

“It’s the same goal every year… trying to make the provincial playoff and see what happens,” said boys Head Coach Dave Seto, who is welcoming back six returning players along with bringing in seven new recruits. “We do have some leadership and guys that have been there before at Hoopla, so that’s a good start.”

“Our goal obviously is to try to get our new faces on the same page and learn the systems that we do, and hopefully we can accomplish the same goal this year.”

The boys team will play at a tournament this weekend in Saskatoon beginning on Friday.

Both Carlton teams also began their season this past weekend.

The St. Mary Marauders Senior Boys basketball team plays against Meadow Lake on opening weekend. (Submitted photo/Dave Seto)

—

nolan.kowal@pattisonmedia.com