The St. Albert Skyhawks are returning to high school men’s basketball provincials after a 15-year absence.
“It’s been a long time in the making,” said Evan Holstein, head coach of the 18-16 Skyhawks who beat the Beaumont Bandits in a sudden-death playoff last Saturday to earn their trip to provincials.
The 3A tournament tips off Thursday for the Skyhawks against Beaverlodge Royals and the winner will play the host Camrose Trojans in the quarter-finals.
Saturday’s final starts at 7 p.m.
The last time the Skyhawks hooped it up at provincials they returned home with silver medals.
“I really believe we can do some damage this year, absolutely,” said Grade 12 standout Cole Aikens. “We’ve already beaten a couple of key teams that will be there.”
Last month in Wetaskiwin the Skyhawks played the Cochrane Cobras, the No. 1 seed at provincials, and lost by four points.
They also defeated the fourth-seeded Crescent Heights Vikings of Medicine Hat by 10 points.
“We’ve proven throughout the year we can compete with anybody in 3A,” Holstein said.
The Skyhawks are seeded sixth in the 12-team draw after thumping Beaumont 73-58 Saturday at the SkyDome to earn the second Edmonton zone berth at provincials.
The sudden-death playoff featured the 5-5 metro Edmonton premier conference Skyhawks against the 9-4 city conference Bandits.
“It was cool that it was Beaumont we were playing because last year they knocked us off when we tried to qualify for provincials,” Aikens said. “It was all about revenge and we got it.”
The third win in four games in the double elimination zone tournament was extra special for the Skyhawks’ senior players.
“As Grade 12s we’ve got to pull our team along, especially in key games like this,” Aikens said. “It was also our last game on our home court and we wanted make some good memories.”
The Skyhawks led 22-14 after 10 minutes, 38-27 at halftime and 58-46 after three quarters.
“I’m proud of the guys. We worked hard to get this win,” Aikens said. “We worked the ball inside and knocked down our free throws when we needed to.”
Kundai Zindi, Beaumont’s big post, led all scorers with 26 points. His 17-point outburst in the third quarter included 11 free throws. He eventually fouled out in the fourth quarter.
“We did a good job against their big men and shutting them down and putting them in foul trouble,” Aikens said. “Our guys also played with a lot of class and we finished the game with composure.”
The six-foot-six Aikens pounded the ball inside for a team-high 24 points. His 16-point effort in the first half gave the Skyhawks a huge lift.
Grade 11 gunner Cam Vilcsak poured in 21 points, including two pivotal three-pointers. Grade 11 post Levi Constantin made three field goals in the third quarter with Aikens on the bench. Ben Crothers and Chris Spiwek also came through with timely points with six apiece.
Thursday in the zone final the Skyhawks fell 81-77 to the visiting Edmonton Christian Lions. The Edmonton public league Lions are seeded fifth at provincials.
“We beat ourselves that game. We didn’t play to our peak,” said Aikens, 17.
The third-year Skyhawk racked up 27 points in a losing cause. He averaged 23 points in four zone games as the Skyhawks’ top scorer in every match.
“We rely heavily on a couple of our scorers and Cole obviously is our best option inside,” Holstein said. “But the biggest thing for us is defence. That’s what I preach because defence is what wins big games. One through 12 [on the roster] everybody knows how to play defence and I can trust all my guys to step in and get stops.”
This was Holstein’s first season as head coach of the Skyhawks as they made a successful return to premier after several seasons in the city conference.
“It’s been up and down for us. We started kind of not knowing where we were going to be because it was our first year back in premier. We had some big wins early and then we had some upsets later on,” said the St. Albert Catholic High School athletic director. “We went into the Wetaskiwin [3A level] tournament and played three amazing games and we tried to ride that momentum [into the playoffs and zones].
“We were ranked No. 1 in this tournament and we wanted to play Christian to see how we stood against them. We had a tough loss against them but the boys bounced back and showed they really wanted to go to provincials.”
