Spartan pride took over on the hard-court last weekend.
The Strathcona-Tweedsmuir Spartans doubled down on championships at home with both its senior boys and girls taking home the Spartan Invitational basketball tournament on Dec. 14.
The Spartans boys knocked off the Acme Redmen 81-75 in a barnburner tournament final.
“I was really happy with how our boys team played in the final,” said Spartans boys head coach Luke Deis. “Acme was a really tough opponent. They’re big, they’re fast, they’re strong.
“We had a very difficult game against them, both teams played at a very high level, there were no real slumps for either team. It was just a close game all the way through.”
Spartan Julian Pierce-Lord was a key cog on offence, leading the team with 36 points on the night.
Guard Kiyan Sunderji hit six key free throws down the stretch after earlier being forced to the sidelines in foul trouble.
“Down the stretch (Julian) had a couple of big buckets and we had a few key stops,” Deis said. “But they were scoring too. We would punch it up to six and they would score two or three and get it back down to two or three point deficits.
“In the end, Kiyan Sunderji had a big performance in the fourth quarter … He played the last seven minutes of the game with four fouls and he was really clutch on the foul line.”
Fellow-guard Jake Zelez, from Okotoks, was also excellent in the final and chewed up a lot of quality minutes with Sunderji on the bench.
The Spartans earlier blitzed Didsbury 81-41 and opened the competition with an impressive 94-43 victory over Sundre.
“We averaged over 85 a game in the tournament,” Deis said. “And Acme was a very difficult team defensively, they were bigger than us, but we managed a way to find some baskets.”
Likewise for the Spartans senior girls.
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir reigned supreme in the three-team female bracket.
The Spartans took care of École de la Rose Sauvage and the Rosemary Rockets in the round-robin and again got the better of the Rockets in the final by a 54-24 score.
“There were lots of positive,” said Spartans girls head coach Ken Zelez. “We played everybody. We’ve combined our program, junior varsity and senior varsity, and decided to play everybody on the weekend.
“We were playing 14 kids and we rotated with basically equal playing time for everybody. It truly was a full team competition.”
It’s a positive development for an extremely youthful Spartans squad made up largely of Grade 10s with just two seniors — Stephanie Picioreanu and Izzy Imoru.
“The future is quite bright, if all those (Grade) 10s stick with basketball,” Zelez said. “It was a really good showing by our younger players and our older players actually were excellent mentors and that’s what we’re fostering this year.”
With league play in the Foothills Athletic Council winding down for most of January, the Spartans next big date is the Sweet 16 tournament at Rundle in early February.
For more information on Spartans athletics go to sts.ab.ca
