Yorkdale Central School Hosted the East Central District Athletic Association Junior High School Boys Basketball Championship over the weekend. The championship tournament featured the eight best teams in the Good Spirit School Division.
The Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) Grade 9 team coached by Perry Ostapowich emerged as tournament champions.
The tournament went very well, says Ostapowich. "We went into the tournament seeded Number 1," he reports. The YRHS boys swept the event, winning all three games, Ostapowich notes.
YRHS downed Langenburg 80-22 in their opening game. It was a good game for his team as all players hit the scoresheet and the boys worked the offence well, Opstapowich points out.
In their second game against Preeceville, YRHS came out on top of a 53-19 score. YRHS forwards were able to control the boards in the game resulting in a number of rebound points. Forward Peter Kozushka scored 12 points, Jon Muir accounted for nine while Alex Poppoff put up 15 points and Ryan Krochak with six points did a good job at the point guards post ions. Other scorers included Jesse McDowell, Calin Bugera, Darius Haber-stock and Matthew McKee each added two points while Tanner Mak scored five more.
In the tournament final YRHS claimed the title 47-31 over runners-up Canora.
Canora was by far the biggest team YRHS faced all year. In the first half their low post players out muscled Yorkton on rebounds making for a pretty physical game.
YRHS forward Jon Muir fouled out early resulting in a need to shuffle personnel, moving point guard Alex Popoff to a post position.
The score after the first half was very close with YRHS leading by seven.
The second half saw YRHS change the offence a bit by driving the key, resulting in a number of Canora fouls and ball movement by Krochak and Mak which resulted in the forwards getting some quality scoring opportunities.
Canora had trouble with Yorkton's full court press in the second half and YRHS scored 12 points on turn overs alone.
Defensively the boys really picked it up limiting Canora to only eight points in the second half. Ostapowich says the tight defense and forced turnovers really made a big difference in the game.
Haberstock played his best defence of the year while Bugera and Popoff did a good job controlling the defensive rebounds. Scorers in the tournament final were Krochak with 12 points, Popoff with 11 points, Mak and Haberstock with seven, Bugera with six points, while Muir and Peter Kozushka each added two points.
This year's YRHS Grade 9 team was a good group of athletes who played hard defense, were creative on the offensive side of the ball and were eager to learn, Ostapowich closes.
