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St. Mary gearing up for Kelly Smith memorial tournament

Jan 9, 2019 | 12:59 PM

Some of the province’s top Senior Girls basketball teams will soon be descending on Prince Albert.

Starting Thursday, École St. Mary High School will be hosting the annual Kelly Smith Memorial Tournament.

Dwayne Gareau, vice principal at St. Mary, who also serves as the coach for the school’s senior girl’s basketball team told paNOW the tournament brings strong competition to the city.

“We have 12 teams coming from across the province, a lot of really high level teams, high level players as well as coaches,” he said.

St. Mary has been hosting a senior girl’s tournament for quite a period of time. The tournament has been called the Kelly Smith Memorial Tournament since 2003. The tournament was given its name to honour the former St. Mary student athlete. Smith was set to becoming a teacher at St. Mary before she passed away.  

“We’ve just kind of carried it on since then,” said Gareau.

Since the memorial tournament was established 16 years ago the host team has enjoyed some success.

“Since it’s been called the Kelly Smith memorial, we’ve got four silvers and three bronze, so we’ve haven’t got that championship yet,” Gareau said.

While the Marauders have not been able to take home the tournament crown, the Carlton Comprehensive High School Crusaders have kept the tournament trophy in the host city on one occasion.

This year the two time defending champions from Walter Murray Collegiate in Saskatoon will be returning to try to defend their crown for the third time. The past two years the Saskatoon team has defeated Carleton to take home first place.

Gareau said a number of teams have won the tournament over the years, some of whom will be returning this year, while there are teams who have been competing regularly who have not taken home the top prize.  

“Everyone’s looking for that championship this weekend,” he said.

The St. Mary coach said they are aiming to win the tournament like they would with any other tournament they compete in, but explained the level of competition is quite high, which makes it a hard one to win.

“If we come away playing good basketball hopefully we can take home the championship,” said Gareau.

The action will officially tip off Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at St. Mary.

MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn