DAVIDSON—Davidson School’s junior boy Raiders defeated Biggar’s St. Gabriel Saints 43-26 last Wednesday to win the West Central District Championship.
“The kids played really well,” coach Kim Rettger said of the team’s effort.
Rettger, who coaches the senior boy Raiders, subbed as coach while the team’s head coach Garret Bailey was away at a conference.
Going into districts, the Raiders had anticipated meeting the Saints in the final.
Rettger said the team had a plan to deal with St. Gabe’s 6’2” big man.
“The key was to stop him so we put Blake Allan on him the whole game. Blake kept their big guy in check,” Rettger said.
The Raiders began the game playing a box-and-one zone defence, which Rettger said worked fairly well and then changed to a man-to-man defence that gave the Raiders even better results.
“Parker (Smith) was fabulous rebounding so was Clay (Murfitt) and Mark (Rettger) shot the lights out,” Rettger said.
Mark led the Raiders in scoring with 22 points. Parker had 16 points in the win.
The Raiders were able to get all their players on the court throughout the game, whereas St. Gabriel stayed with its starting five.
“We never ran away with the score, but we had control the whole game,” Rettger said.
The Raiders’ first game against Eston, whom the Raiders expected to beat handily started tougher than the team expected, despite the 62-37 score.
“They played well enough to win but it didn’t pan out as easy as they thought.”
Rettger said at the half, it was anybody’s game.
He switched up the defences, going away from a zone to man-to-man, which worked better for the team, plus in the second half, Rettger said the boys played much better.
Parker Smith had 26 points for the win, Mark Rettger had 17, Clay Murfitt put up 8 points and Blake Allan chipped in with 7 points.
Seniors at Conferences
Basketball season is over for the junior Raiders, but the action is just heating up for Davidson School’s senior teams that begin playoffs this weekend. The senior boys are hosting 1A conference finals this weekend. Teams from Kenaston, Allan, Central Butte, LCBI and Davidson will be vying for first and second place and a chance to advance to regional playoffs next weekend.
The senior girl Raiders will be in Regina competing for the 2A conference championship. They’ll come up against Regina Harvest City, Langenberg and Moose Jaw Cornerstone.