Hawks clip Cougars

By Lethbridge Herald on January 23, 2023.

Herald photo by Justin SEWARD Catholic Central Cougars Talon Weaselhead tries to drive around a Medicine Hat Hawks defender to make a play in coverage on Saturday night at Catholic Central West.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Catholic Central Cougars senior basketball dropped both of their home games to the Medicine Hat High School Hawks during Southern Alberta High School Basketball League action on Saturday.

The boys team (0-7) came so close to their first league win, but were clipped by the Hawks 81-75.

“We match up well against them,” said Justin Archibald, Cougars head coach.

“It was just one of those nights we got into foul trouble and we didn’t make some shots, they made some shots.”

One of the Cougars downfalls was shooting only  4-for-21 from three point range.

“Yeah, that hurt,” said Archibald.

Archibald would have liked to see more assertiveness to score on his team’s part.

“I think sometimes we just settle for shots instead of looking to create a better shot for a teammate,” said Archibald.

The Cougars are winless in league play and are a perfect 7-0 in non-league games.

“So we just got to kind of figure out how to win a few games in our league and we’ll be OK and we can compete in the Zone championship,” said Archibald.

The struggles the team has faced is having injuries early on, suspensions and playing tough opponents Raymond, McGrath and Cardston all within the first few weeks of the season in December.

“There was some close games and there just always tough games,” said Archibald.

Archibald does remind his players that they’re doing the right things to get results and to trust the process.

“Sometimes we might not get the results we want but if we stick to the process at the end  of the year, we should be playing the way we want to and then the results should come in the end,” said Archibald.

The girls(1-5) lost 73-46  to the Hawks earlier in the evening.

“I think this team, Medicine Hat, they played hard tonight,” said girls head coach James Spiess.

“Certainly not having three starters here tonight really hurt us in the start of the game …  I think the start of the game was decent, but having an under resourced (team) or anything that way, it hurts us in our depth and rotations and everything. But I was grateful for some of our JVs (Junior Varsity) that came up and played really well —  we had four JVs playing today — so it’s hard to evaluate the game that way when we (do not) have the whole team. I think we’d be right in the mix with a full team.”