It takes a community to raise a basketball team.
Bryan Brandford, Okotoks Junior High School (OJHS) Ocelots Senior basketball coach, is reaping the benefits of a strong community basketball program. His team has an 11-0 record and has won two tournaments to go along with sitting in first-place in the Foothills Athletic Council.
“Oh, most definitely we have benefitted from all the strong coaches who are involved in the community program,” Brandford said.
He said thanks to the strong community programs, he has a group of players who are not only good athletes on the court but strong students of the game.
Brandford coached the Ocelots’ Grade 7 team two years ago. He knew at that time those players would be a formidable team when they reached their final year of junior high school basketball.
Even though he didn’t have two of the best players in Grade 7 on that team.
Guards Hunter Karl and Jamie Derochie were already on the Senior team as Grade 7 players.
“Those guys have played Senior ball all three years,” Brandford said. “We also have a couple of players who made the team as Grade 8 players last year.”
Brandford said the team’s strength is its speed. The players are so quick they should be promoted from Ocelots to Cheetahs.
“They are extremely quick,” Brandford said. “Our guards get the ball up the court quickly. We also have two good posts who can handle the ball well.”
Brandford said this year’s team is similar in strength to the 2007-08 Ocelots who went undefeated with players such as Ammon Crowfoot, and current Foothills Falcons Scott Sparrow and Ryan Derochie. “It would be a heck of a game if those two teams could play one another,” he said.
The current Ocelots’ two big guys are Noah Wilkie and Austin Orr. Wilkie is a product of Okotoks’ strong community program while Orr came to OJHS from hockey-mad St. Paul midway through Grade 7. He also has played community ball since coming to Okotoks.
The six-foot-six Orr said the team has improved considerably since last year when it was second at the South Central Zone tournament.
“We have all played together now and a lot of us played club ball,” Orr said. “We’re playing better as a team.”
Orr said while having height is an advantage in high school, it can have its downside in junior high.
“I’m a lot slower than the other guys on our team but I am getting faster,” he said with a smile.
The Ocelots’ offence is such that the bigger guys, like Orr and Wilkie, get the opportunity to handle and dribble quite often, which should help them when they make the step to Foothills Composite High School.
However, first the Ocelots have some unfinished business to attend to — trying to win the Foothills Athletic Council and then the South Central Zone.
One of their toughest opponents will be John Paul II Collegiate Gryphons from Okotoks.
The remaining members of the Ocelots are: Brett Carter, Anthony Cayetano, Wyatt Stratton, Morgan Burbank, Austin Smutko and Calob Miller.
