The St. Albert Skyhawks continued their winning ways in high school women’s basketball in Thursday’s opening game at the 29th annual Jasper Place REB Tournament.
Kendall Lydon poured in 22 points as the 3A provincial gold medallists and metro Edmonton premier champions defeated Riffel of Regina 78-61.
Haley England tacked up 18 points and Shelby Hucul added 14 as the Skyhawks improved their overall record to 5-1.
Friday night the Skyhawks challenged the host Jasper Place Rebels in the semifinals but the score was unavailable at press time. The other semifinal featured the Harry Ainlay Titans versus the O’Leary Spartans. Last weekend the Spartans downed the Skyhawks 52-41 in the final of the 13th annual Mike Dea Classic, hosted by the St. Francis Xavier Rams.
Today the Skyhawks will play the third-place game at 2 p.m. or the final at 6 p.m. The tournament website is http://www.jasperplace.ca.
In premier action the Skyhawks crushed the Salisbury Sabres 95-32 Wednesday at the SkyDome. A balanced scoring attack featured 14-point efforts by Lydon and England. Zoe Downing and Paige Knull chipped in with 12 apiece and Amber Easthope had 11.
The next league game is Monday against the Oscar Romero Ravens in Edmonton. Tipoff is 6:15 p.m.
Last season the Skyhawks went 14-0 in premier and 34-5 overall.
St. Albert swimmers with the Olympian club dominated the pool at the J.P. Fiset Invitational last week at the Kinsmen Sports Centre.
Outstanding performances of note included the following medal winners:
Emily Flowers, 14: two gold, two silver and two bronze; three gold and one silver in relays.
Natasha Fung, 17: two gold, two silver and one bronze; one bronze in relay.
Frederick Kamminga, 12: two gold, three silver and two bronze; two silver in relays.
Paige Kremer, 14: six gold and one silver; three gold and one silver in relays.
Meanwhile, a provincial record was broken by the 13-14 girls in the 400 free relay by Kremer, Flowers, Camille Barr and Arynn DeLeeuw. They also set a club record in the 200 free relay and narrowly missed the provincial record by 4/10ths of a second.
Club records were also established by Kremer in the 200 back, Georgia Kidd in the 100 free and the open boys’ 200 free relay team of Luke Peddie, Trace Kremer, Matt Kowalik and Hunter Balch.
The St. Albert Curling Club will roll out the red carpet Jan. 11 for a special event.
The grand opening of the club’s newly refurbished front end will also include a presentation by the City of St. Albert to Olympic gold medallist Marc Kennedy, a highly-decorated St. Albert curling product with the Kevin Martin rink.
Also attending the grand opening are Scott Pfeifer, Don McKenzie, Cathy King and Jackie Rae Greening — former champions with strong St. Albert connections — as well as the family of Hec Gervais.
Cocktails start at 6:30 p.m. and the ceremony begins at 7:30 p.m.
Thanks to significant funding from the federal and provincial governments and the City of St. Albert, the club will now become a year-round facility. The new 240-seat capacity banquet facility is located upstairs in the Friendly Giant Lounge. Downstairs, in addition to new locker rooms for the curlers, there is a state of the art kitchen and a meeting room that will be available to rent.
For more info, contact club manager Jennifer McMillan at 459-7007 or email [email protected].
