Jamie Mountain
The end of the regular season is quickly approaching and the Rainy River Owls’ court teams will be looking to end on a high note.
The junior boys’ basketball squad came up on the wrong end of a 57-47 score to the visiting St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora) on Thursday to see their NorWOSSA ‘A’ record fall to 1-4.
RRHS actually held the lead at halftime but were unable to hold off the Saints in the second half.
“We were leading at the half so it was a tough loss when you consider we ended the game down by double digits,” Owls’ head coach Kevin Gemmell conceded.
“They were a good shooting team and they took advantage of our perimeter defence in our zone,” he noted.
“They hit some key shots to kill some of [our] momentum late in the fourth quarter.”
Gemmell felt as though his squad did well to move without the ball in the loss.
“And we had key input from Joe Tiboni, who displayed excellent intensity of defence,” he lauded.
“Him and Wallid [Quran] were our leading scorers, I believe, but I’m unsure of the numbers.”
The Owls resumed action yesterday against the host Red Lake Rams, with the outcome not known as of press time.
Then they were slated to be in Kenora today to face the Saints before wrapping up the regular season with a make-up home game Friday versus the Pelican Falls Wolverines that was postponed last Wednesday.
Gemmell is hopeful the Owls will continue building on their offensive and defensive fundamentals this week.
“I think we are progressing in the right direction, with the defining factor being that we are competing in every game,” he remarked.
The seniors hoopsters, meanwhile, fared much better as they beat the visiting Saints 62-55 to improve their league record to 2-3.
In girls’ volleyball action, both the Owls’ junior and senior squads competed at the “Winter Blast” tournament hosted by the Kenora Broncos on Friday and Saturday.
The juniors compiled a 2-1-1 record in round-robin play in Pool ‘C’ to finish sixth.
That included straight-sets wins over the host Broncos’ ‘B’ team (25-5/25-22) and St. Ignatius Falcons (25-20/25-15), a straight-sets loss to the Muskies (14-25/9-25), and a split with St. Thomas Aquinas (25-16/24-26).
As for the seniors, they went 0-4 in round-robin Pool ‘B’ play to wind up in fifth place.
That included straight-set losses to the host Broncos (17-25/16-25), Falcons (12-25/12-25), Hammarskjold Vikings (24-26/19-25), and Muskies (10-25/15-25).
The juniors had gone into the weekend fresh off a 3-1 win over the visiting Saints on Thursday that improved their NorWOSSA record to 4-1.
But it wasn’t good news for the seniors, who were swept 3-0 by the Saints to see their league record drop to 1-4.
