The Peacock Toilers wanted to measure their progress over the course of the Moose Jaw Senior Girls Invitational Basketball Tournament.
Suffice it to say that they’re ahead of the curve right now.
The Toilers beat Meadow Lake Carpenter 67-54 to claim the tournament title Saturday at home.
“We had a really good weekend,” said Peacock coach Renee Verge. “We were expecting this to be a really good weekend of growth for us with four games over the three days.
“Our focus for the weekend, after Thursday, was really to focus on our defence. We really saw that side of our game take a huge step forward.”
After allowing 65 points to Meath Park in the opener, the Toilers allowed an average of 41.3 points-per-game the rest of the tournament.
Verge was very happy with the progress the team made in working together, but felt there was plenty of progress still to be made in the coming months.
“We’ve still got two hard months ahead of us,” she said. “We’ve set some goals for ourselves and there’s a lot of little stepping stones ahead to achieve those goals. Certainly from what we saw this weekend we do have the pieces. The trick to basketball is staying healthy and to keep improving.
“We have a lot of room to take some big steps forward.”
Meadow Lake gave Peacock a good battle in the final. Peacock led 39-33 at the half and both teams got into foul trouble in the second half as they battled in the paint.
Meadow Lake’s Maddie Oystrick got into foul trouble and eventually fouled as did Peacock’s Amy Williams and Caitlyn Kitts.
“Both teams were a little lean in the post department by the end of it, but it was a good game. It was a good battle at both ends of the court,” said Verge.
Williams still led the Toilers in scoring in the final and Grade 9 guard Libby Epoch also made a big contribution offensively.
In the semifinal, the Toilers beat Weyburn 60-37.
The Central Cyclones finished seventh at the tournament after they beat Balgonie Greenall 38-23.
That win came after they lost 48-20 to Prince Albert Carlton.
“I think three out of the four games we played pretty well,” said Central coach Jocelyn Wigmore who was happy with how her team bounced back in their win over Balgonie after some struggles against Carlton.
“Offensively we played well too, but we had trouble getting our shots to fall,” said Wigmore. “Thankfully in the fourth quarter we started to hit some and we built more of a lead.”
