Whitehorse Daily Star

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FIRST TEST – Vanier Catholic Secondary School’s Chad Williams (left) gets low in his defensive stance in action against Skagway High School. Vanier lost the game 35-27. Photo by JEFF BRADY

School b-ball teams get first tests in Skagway

Five Whitehorse senior basketball teams made the trip to Skagway, Alaska

By Dustin Cook on January 9, 2018

Five Whitehorse senior basketball teams made the trip to Skagway, Alaska for their first games of the year in preparation for the upcoming season.

Both the senior girl’s and boy’s teams from F.H. Collins Secondary School and Vanier Catholic Secondary School as well as the boy’s team from Porter Creek Secondary School made the trip up for the weekend tournament to start off the seasons for the teams.

With the regular season originally expected to start this Thursday with Super Hoops action between F.H. Collins and Porter Creek, the season-opening games have been postponed until Jan. 25-26.

F.H. Collins senior boys head coach Jamie Shaw said the Porter Creek teams, who were set to host the first series of games, will be travelling to Tok, Alaska this weekend and therefore couldn’t host the games.

The recent trip is an annual occurrence for the teams to compete in the Don Hather Memorial Basketball Tournament honouring Hather who was a longtime high school basketball coach in Alaska with three different schools.

Facing off against the typically strong Alaskan basketball teams, none of the Whitehorse teams were able to advance to the finals of the tournament.

Shaw said the F.H Collins Warriors girl’s team advanced to the semifinals, but dropped a 54-42 decision to Skagway.

Skagway lost to Haines High School in the tournament final.

Shaw said the tournament was a learning experience for his young senior team winning one out of five games in the tournament.

“For us, we’re a young team so it’s an opportunity to gain experience for future years,” he said.

With the regular season postponed two weeks, Shaw said his team will take the added time to practice and work on what they saw in the tournament play.

“We’re getting in as much practice as possible. This was an opportunity for us to see who we have and how these guys compete. They showed us a lot that we’re going to focus on now in practice,” he said.

The one win for the team came against Skagway, Shaw said, who they faced twice in the tournament. Hoonah High School won the tournament over Tok in the final. The Warriors fell to Skagway in their other matchup, Tok twice as well as Porter Creek.

The Porter Creek senior girl’s team was the only senior team not to make the trip, but Shaw said they are expected to make the trip up to Tok with the Porter Creek boy’s team for pre-season games.

Tok made the trip down to Whitehorse for games Jan. 3 against the Rams at Porter Creek.

With senior basketball postponed, there is still plenty of school action underway as the new sports year kicks off.

A Grade 7 3-on-3 tournament will take over the Canada Games Centre Wednesday for their basketball competition of the year as there is no regular season competition or Yukon Championships tournament for the grade level.

The junior season will also continue Wednesday with Porter Creek hosting Vanier in both boys and girls action.

The Yukon Basketball Championships are set for the beginning of March with the Grade 8 and 9/10 tournament running March 1-3 and the senior championships taking place at F.H. Collins March 5-9.

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