When you are not the biggest bird in the nest, you have to claw and battle for everything you can get.
So far, despite their smaller stature – in basketball standards, that is,— the Foothills Falcons have more than held their own.
Both the Senior boys and girls Foothills Falcons turned in sound performances at the D4 Invitational High School basketball tournament in Calgary last weekend.
“I love the way our guys work – they love to just go out there and compete,” said Falcons Sr. boys coach Amron Gwilliam. “It doesn’t matter who we play against, we don’t back down.
“We’re small, not a lot of size, but they are hard-working, they want to be coached and they want to get better.
“That’s all you can ask for.”
The Falcons proved in the opening game of the Calgary tourney they are willing to work – they had to after being off-kilter for 30 minutes against the Centennial Coyotes.
“We actually played fairly poorly for the first three quarters of the game, we were down by 16 or 18 going into the fourth quarter,” Gwilliam said. “Then we were finally able to turn things around.”
Foothills was able to eke out an 81-80 win to down the Coyotes.
“We were trying a lot of new things offensively and defensively,” Gwilliam said. “We have a lot of new kids and them trying to understand on both ends of the floor, and things finally started to click.
“Our guys started making better rotations on the defensive end, we stopped giving up easy shots and we took care of the ball a little bit better.
“And once we started making better shots, our momentum swung. The fourth quarter it started coming together.”
The Falcons took the lead in the final three minutes at 79-77 – the first time they were in front since early in the first quarter.
Gwilliam said returning players Cam Boriskewich, Cley Perrett and Ethan Doering were key in the fourth quarter comeback.
Boriskewich led the team with 23 points, Doering had 15 and Sam Simard – taking a break from his captaincy with the Bow Mark AAA Oilers – had nine points.
Foothills had their toughest test of the young season when they drew the Bishop McNally Timberwolves, a perennial power in Calgary.
“We started off a little bit slow, I think our guys were a little bit intimidated by them,” Gwilliam said. “We got down early.”
The young squad learned from its mistakes.
“I was really proud of our guys,” Gwilliam said. “In the second half, we settled in, quit turning the ball over and our defence did a much better job of containing their fast-break and dribble penetration.
“In the fourth quarter we were able to get within five.”
However, a big comeback means having to take big chances.
Foothills was forced to take quick shots to get back into it and the Timberwolves were able to pick up some fast points for the 26-point 105-79 victory.
Boriskewich once again led the flock with 24 points, Perrett had 22 and Doering chipped in 10.
The Falcons closed out the tournament against Vancouver College which is ranked in B.C.
“Our guys were really digging in against a team that was way bigger and we built about a 15-point lead in the first quarter,” Gwilliam said.
VC was able to battle back and cut Foothills lead to 42-40 at the half.
The B.C. squad took advantage to some Foothills miscues in the third quarter for a 15-point lead.
“The fourth quarter was a lot like we have seen early this season,” Gwilliam said. “We battled back to within six points and then they pulled away in the final minutes.”
Van Coll outlasted the Falcons 90-77.
Boriskewich finished with 25, Liam Gunning and Perrett 10 in the loss to the B.C. school.
The Falcons have six players returning from last season zone championship team.
“Most of them didn’t play a lot of minutes last year,” Gwilliam said. “There’s a little bit more pressure on them.”
The Falcons’ tallest player is Hawk Edey at around 6-foot-3 and Doering is around 6-foot-2.
“That doesn’t make our team tall by any stretch of the imagination, but we have guys who work hard, can shoot the ball fairly well,” Gwilliam said.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Falcons as they are off to the Cardston Cougars tournament this weekend and they open with the Catholic Central Cougars.The D4 weekend comes on the heels of Foothills going 2-2 in the 16-team tournament at the St. Francis Xavier tournament to finish fourth.
Consolation gold
It will say Falcons on the scoresheet, but the Foothills Sr. girls squad looks like roadrunners on the court.
“I like this team,” Falcons coach Vince Hunter said. “They’re gritty, they’re super fast but we are certainly raw – were pretty young.”
The young Falcons had a taste of success this season, winning a tournament in Rocky Mountain House two weeks ago.
Foothills held its own in the bigger D4 tournament on Dec. 6-7 by going 3-1 to take the consolation side.
They opened the tournament by getting bumped by the LCI Rams 78-42.
“That was our first game this year playing a big school,” Hunter said. “And we didn’t hit a basket for the first five or six minutes of the game. The girls worked for good looks, but nothing was falling for them… being our first tough game, I thought we saw a lot of growth over those four quarters.”
Foothills then rattled off a pair of convincing victories, downing Medicine Hat’s Crescent Height High School 79-44 and then the Chestermere Lakers 58-21 to advance to the consolation final.
They found out in the final that defence wins championships – even the consolation variety.
The Falcons won the title by downing the Medicine Hat Mohawks 58-57 when Foothills snuffed out their opponent’s last trip up the floor – and didn’t mess up when they got the ball.
“We drew up what our deny defence would look like and the girls did a great job,” Hunter said. “Medicine Hat didn’t get a great look and we were able to pull down that rebound.”
The Falcons still had to run out the clock.
“Sawyer (Remington) made a great play from the sideline with about 10 seconds left in the game,” Hunter said. “She was able to make a really difficult pass to Chloe (Hunter) at the top where Sawyer was able to fight off three players who were pressing her.
“I thought it was a real character win.”
The Falcons are in Cardston this weekend. They will play a rare home game when the Chestermere Lakers visit the Falcons nest on Dec. 18.
The Foothills Falcons are Chloe Hunter, Hallie Dunham, Maddy Wood, Gracie McNichol, Sawyer Remington, Jadie O’Bray, Makayla Porteous, Grace Fisher, Victoria Want, Morgan Cyr, Fiona Zelez, Trista Thorn and Jorja Carlson.
