Basketball action is coming to Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School this month.
The Eagles senior boys teams will be hosting their second annual South Cariboo Winter Classic on Feb. 9 - 10 at the PSO gymnasium. They’ll be facing off against five teams from Barriere, Hope, Williams Lake, Quesnel and Burns Lake in a round-robin style tournament. Eagles coach Andrew Steeves said he’s looking forward to seeing his team play against so many strong schools.
“Lake City Secondary School and Correlieu Secondary School are both Triple-A teams so it’s always fun to get some good competitive games going with them,” Steeves said.
The PSO Eagles will be playing the Lakecity Falcons at 3 p.m. and against Hope Secondary School at 6 p.m. on Feb. 9. Depending on how they do in those first games they will play more on Saturday.
Steeves said this tournament comes at a good time for his team. Over the last few months they’ve begun to play well together, which culminated on Jan. 26 and 27 in Ashcroft where they went undefeated and won Desert Sands Community School’s tournament.
“It feels good to see the team clicking on all cylinders, playing really hard defensively and we’ve got a lot of guys who are starting to step up on offense and make good shot decisions and pass to their teammates so they can score,” Steeves said. “It’s a good time of year to have everything come together.”
In Ashcroft Steeves said his team beat Lytton’s Kumsheen ShchEma-meet School 72-49, Barriere Secondary School 60-46 and Desert Sands Community School 53-40. The final game against Desert Sands was especially competitive, Steeves noted, with the Eagles only managing to pull ahead in the final period. He credited their successes to the team’s ability to play together as a team.
“The team has grown over the last couple of months in their competitive nature and their willingness to learn in the game of basketball. They’re working very hard and starting to see the result of all that hard work,” Steeves said.
Basketball players Everett Hollett and Ahmed Omer agree with Steeves that the basketball season has been positive this year. Hollett said they’ve been working hard at building up their skills and their school spirit.
“We had a rough start but we’ve been doing really good recently,” Omer said. “We’ve upped our practice intensity which comes together during games to help us win. Getting first place is always our goal.”
Hollett said he felt that their first game in Ashcroft was just “ok” while their final two were some of the best they’ve played all season.
After their home tournament, PSO will be hosting the North Central Double A Zones on Feb. 22 to 24. Steeves is excited as he doesn’t believe 100 Mile House has hosted basketball zones for years, if ever. The winner of the tournament will go on to represent the Zone at provincials.
Both Steeves and his players encourage anyone interested in basketball to come watch them at either their home tournament or zones. The gym will be open for anyone to attend and cheer the Eagles on. Omer is excited to be playing in front of the hometown fans, especially his fellow classmates.
“We got to get all the school out and hopefully have a bunch of fans watching,” Hollett remarked. “It’s going to be awesome and fun to watch, hopefully. We’re trying to build the basketball program up a little more in 100 Mile House and get anyone out there who wants to play.”
Outside of the 11-strong senior boys team, Steeves said basketball in general is flourishing at the high school. The junior boys teams have 14 members while the senior and junior girls teams have 25 players between them.
“The program has been growing and all four teams have been playing games and traveling to tournaments. It just seems like basketball is becoming a popular sport in 100 Mile House,” Steeves said. “I think it’s exciting in general for the community when we can grow any sport and get more kids involved. It’s positive for the kids and school as well to be out there competing at local tournaments.”
