The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The Creighton Kodiaks senior boys basketball team beat themselves during their semi-final match against the Stobart Rebels as they lost 59-53. Leading at the half 25-20, it appeared as though the Kodiaks were on their way to the final in a tournament they hosted. "We started making mental breakdowns, but that comes with time and experience," said Kodiaks coach Jodee Gray. "Like these guys haven't played long at this level. This is only our second year playing senior ball for a lot of these kids and we are a young team." In the second half, the Kodiaks scored 28 points while the Rebels managed 39. One of the problems the Kodiaks started running into was getting the ball to their post players, this caused Gray to call a time out. "I don't know, I tried to stress, because we are such a tall team, and we do dominate down low in most of our games," said Gray of his post players. "Just stuff we need to work on. We have a strong inside game, and we usually go to it our first half, but the second half, I don't know if it's fatigue or if it's just nerves, we just stopped going in to our big guys, which we should be doing." Through most of the game, the Kodiaks had a five to six point lead, but the score was 37 a piece at one point. The second half was practically owned by the Rebels who received an offensive boost by Chris Thomas, who shot well from three-point range and carried some of the offensive load. "We could have played a lot better than we did," said Kodiak player Shaun Suski. "We should have talked more and shouldn't have fallen into their street ball (game)." Shaun felt his team played a good defensive game, but realizes they have to learn how to just stay in their positions and not fall into a trap. "Really disappointing," he said of the loss. "It's our home tournament, we really wanted to show what we got." While Gray knows his team defeated themselves, he knows they faced a worthy opponent. "Like they're a good team," Gray said of the Rebels. "Duck Lake had a very good team, and I'll give'em that, but we could have done a lot better." The Kodiaks finished third in their tournament as Nipawin's L.P. Miller defeated Duck Lake 59-30 for top spot. Leading the way in scoring for the Kodiaks was Chad March with 86 points in three games, Matt Chambers with 32 and Andrew Rachuk with 15.
