A newcomer to the St. Albert Skyhawks is spreading her wings as a rising star in high school basketball.
“Playing for SACHS has definitely been pushing me to be a better player which I want to happen,” said Teá DeMong, who started playing hoops In Grade 8 at Harry Collinge High School in Hinton.
DeMong, 15, was one of five Albertans among the 61 players born 2000 or later invited to last month’s Canadian national age-group assessment camp in Toronto.
“Obviously it’s a huge honour. It took a lot of work, a lot of training,” DeMong, said. “It was the best girls in the country so it really pushed my limits. It was a super good experience."
The objective of the camp was to provide a national training environment to identify athletes for the next stage of the 2018 age-group programs.
“The first few days it was hard getting into it because you’re adjusting to the new environment but after that I felt pretty comfortable,” DeMong said. “But it really tested my skills.”
DeMong is primarily a winger but was slotted at shooting guard.
“I was a smaller girl there because at five-foot-11 I’m not very tall,” she said. “When I’m playing a guard position I definitely have size. I also think I'm a pretty good mid-range shooter and I finish strong at the rim.”
DeMong’s journey from the Harry Collinge Rockies to the Skyhawks started at the 2016 Alberta Summer Games in Leduc with Zone 5 when Skyhawks' head coach John Dedrick invited the Grade 9 athlete to join the Panthawks (Panther Athletic Club of Spruce Grove and Skyhawks Basketball).
“I went there and then we kept talking,” DeMong said. “I thought the program here at SACHS was really good so I talked to my mom and she was cool with it.”
Carol DeMong (née Bot) was a post player from Smithers who played for the Oregon Ducks in the Pac-12 Conference and the Canadian junior team at the 1985 worlds.
“She’s been really good. She gives me options. If I didn’t want to play basketball she wouldn’t force me to but she is very supportive because I want to,” DeMong said. “She gives me tips here and there too because she obviously has got a lot of experience.”
The transition to the competitive ranks of 4A basketball with the Skyhawks “was a big decision to make but it was the right one for sure,” said DeMong, a Team Alberta player at the U15 nationals last year and her teammates included Kamryn DeKlerk, a Grade 10 guard from Rollyview with the Skyhawks, Kayleena Garda of the Paul Kane Blues and Haley Fedick of the Jasper Place Rebels who also attended the national age-group camp. Jenna Rinsky, Larissa Stephenson and Dani Nadeau of Jasper Place were also on the team.
DeMong and DeKlerk played together on the U of A Prairie Elite Basketball League U15 team and in the fall participated in Targeted Athlete Strategies for top provincial players in their age group that included Grade 10 post Mimi Sigue of the Skyhawks.
“I played junior Pandas so that helped me get the feel of playing away from home. I played spring league for SACHS too,” said DeMong, who billeted for three months in her Grade 9 year during the spring season.
The Skyhawks are 4-0 in the metro Edmonton division one league and in tournament action placed fourth at the 20th annual Mike Dea Classic at St. Francis Xavier High School and finished second overall at the 25th annual Totem Hoop Classic at Ross Sheppard High School.
“I love our team. We all connect really well,” said DeMong, one of six additions to the roster. “Some of our games have been close and some of them haven't but it’s been good.”
It’s been another season of crippling injuries for the snake-bitten Skyhawks. The latest was a severe concussion to Kyleigh Kornak on Dec. 14 in the team's opening game of the 36th annual REB Invitational at Jasper Place High School. Kornak, a Grade 11 transfer student from St. Joseph High School in Edmonton, was taken by ambulance with a suspected neck injury in the first half against the JW North Huskies of Riverside, California. The game was called off with only six Skyhawks left (DeMong was at the national age group camp) and some were nursing nagging injuries. The Skyhawks ended up withdrawing from the tournament.
The Skyhawks are also waiting for Abby Morrison, a brilliant Grade 12 playmaker at guard who played for Team Alberta at the 2017 Canada Summer Games with Alesha and Ella Stanley of Paul Kane and Sarah Rinsky and Sydney Fedick of Jasper Place, to make her season debut from a lower body injury. Morrison’s status for the Paul Kane Classic this weekend was uncertain at press time.
The Skyhawks started the season with 12 players, including four returnees from the 2017 4A provincial consolation champions and metro division one semifinalists, but are now down to 10 if everybody is healthy but that hasn’t happened yet.
“We’ve been doing really well with all the injuries. It’s hard when we’re playing with seven players (in Monday’s 83-44 win over the St. Peter The Apostle Spartans in Spruce Grove) but we’re working well together,” said DeMong a tournament all-star at the Mike Dea Classic. At the Totem Hoop Classic she sat out the final, a 53-49 loss to the Aden Bowman Bears of Saskatoon, to rest her shins before going to the national age-group camp.
Despite the lack of bodies, the Skyhawks are a solid No. 7 in the unofficial top-10 4A rankings that will be finalized after this weekend and the results of the Paul Kane Classic will have a bearing on the first ranking period of the season.
The Skyhawks tipped off the eight-team draw Friday night against the Medicine Hat Kwahommies but the score was unavailable at press time.
Depending on the score, the Skyhawks hoop it up today against Jasper Place, the 2017 4A provincial gold medallist and two-time defending metro division one champion, or Catholic Central Cougars of Lethbridge at 9:45 a.m. in the consolation bracket or the 1:15 p.m. semifinal.
The consolation final is 4:45 p.m., the third-place game is 6:30 p.m. and the final is 8:15 p.m.
“One of our players will be back from vacation so we’ll be up to be eight players,” DeMong said of the team’s depleated lineup. “We’ve got to work hard and really steady ourselves during the tournament and I think we’ll do good. Our problem will be just lack of players.”
