When you go undefeated while winning your first tournament of the season -- and do so largely in convincing fashion -- odds are pretty good you’re going to have a solid campaign ahead of you.
The Cyclones won all three of their contests in the Crusader Classic Basketball Tournament in Prince Albert during the Dec. 4 weekend, battling to a 68-64 victory over the host Carlton Crusaders in the title game.
The win answered a whole lot of questions for Cyclones head coach Shaun Muchowski and his charges, the largest of which being just where they might stand in the greater scheme of things.
“We played well, but we didn’t really know what to expect since we were coming off of no basketball for so long,” Muchowski said. “We were hoping we would fare well and didn’t really know. But the first couple of games were pretty good, we were able to get out to some big leads and get everyone quite a bit of playing time, so that was really good. Then the final was really hard fought, it was back and forth the whole way, they’d be up a couple and we’d be up a couple, the crowd was into it. It was a great game to finish things off.”
Central had little difficulty in their first game of the season, rolling to a 90-50 win over Meadow Lake. They followed up with an equally as dominant showing in an 87-49 semifinal victory against Prince Albert St. Mary’s. That sent them to the title game against Carlton, where things were decidedly closer.
“It was fun, the kids worked hard and pulled it out in the end,” Muchowski said. “It was exciting, everyone was really fired up and it was really good to start the season off that way, get the confidence up and feeling good about the season.”
As the scores would indicate, the Cyclones’ overall team defence was sharp throughout the weekend, but it took a bit of offensive diversity to get things done in the title game.
“We hadn’t shot the ball all that well in the first couple of games, we were getting to the basket but weren’t shooting all that well,” explained Muchowski. “We had to make some big threes in the final and were able to do that, so it was pretty good… We’re not really big, so we have to be quick and knock down shots and that’s something we’ll keep building on.”
As important as the game was for team confidence, it also acted as a statement towards the rest of the province as well.
“That was actually a message that the coaching staff had for the players this weekend: let’s plant the seed with this tournament on what we plan to do this season,” Muchowski said. “So it was a good statement to make.”
The Peacock Toilers were also in action at the tournament and won their opening game 52-40 over Warman before falling 76-42 to Carlton in the semifinal and 66-63 to St. Mary’s in the third-place game.
The Cyclones wil now join the rest of the Moose Jaw high school league teams in waiting for final word on when the 2021-22 will officially tip off.
“We’re just going to continue to practice and play in tournaments until things are figured out, but I expect we’ll be on the court and playing games here really soon and everything will turn out okay,” Muchowski said.
