The Grand Forks Secondary School senior girls’ basketball team came out on top of this weekend’s Kootenay ‘AA’ Girls Championship.
The playoffs included five other teams from the Kootenays and the winning team goes to provincials, which the Wolves will now be heading to on Wednesday, March 9.
Coach Shayne Konar says the opportunity to go to provincials will be a great experience for the team.
“It’s the goal when you start out to go to provincials, but it’s not a disappointing season if you don’t make it,” Konar says. “This team has been outstanding, they work hard, they run, they shoot, and they have fun together.”
Co-captains Maya Wold and Lindsay Pauls are both excited to go.
“It’s surreal,” Wold says.
Pauls credits the team’s ability to stick together through the pressure of games to their success in the tournament.
The team started the tournament out seeded second and played the third seeded L.V. Rogers from Nelson.
From the start, the girls looked confident keeping a steady pace and high scoring, going into the second half 44-26, plying a high-energy game running up and down the court.
The second half saw the Bombers capitalize on some mistakes by the Wolves and almost make a comeback, getting within eight points. The Wolves, however, remained focused and along with halting the comeback won the game the game 73-58.
The final on Saturday was a match against fifth seeded David Thompson Lakers from Invermere. The Lakers had beat top-seeded Golden on Friday.
From the start the Wolves played confidently, once again leading the scoring at the end of every quarter. In the second, they held the Lakers to only seven points and never let them get back into the game. The final was 67-40.
Konar says that in both games the strategy was to block out all the players and force the point guard on the opposing team to shoot all of the shots.
“We just let them score and shut down everyone else,” Konar says. “It was great.”