Local Sports

The Lindsay Thurber Raiders had a first and a second in the Central Alberta junior varsity basketball playoffs during the weekend.The Raiders won the girls’ title with a 54-47 victory over the Hunting Hills Lightning while the Notre Dame Cougars beat the Raiders 82-58 in the boys’ final.

With overtime looming, Red Deer Optimist Chiefs captain Gabe Bast took matters into his own hands and secured a richly-deserved Alberta Midget Hockey League playoff win for his club Sunday at the Arena.The second-year defenceman took a feed from Trey deGraaf, busted down the right boards and beat Calgary Buffaloes netminder Logan Thompson on the short side to give the Chiefs a 3-2 lead at 16:45 of the third period.

If the Alberta senior AAA hockey final goes seven games, no one will be surprised, least of all the head coaches of the Bentley Generals and Innisfail Eagles.“It was a pretty even regular-season series between the two teams,” Generals bench boss Ryan Tobler said Thursday. “We’re expecting a war. It’s going to be some good hockey and I would encourage people to come and check it out.”

Wrestler Carol Huynh is one of this year’s 10 inductees into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame.Huynh moved to Alberta in 2007 and went on to win gold and bronze in women’s wrestling in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and claim her 11th national championship. She also won gold medals at the Pan-Am and Commonwealth Games.

Cruising along with a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter, the Lindsay Thurber Raiders appeared to be in lockdown mode during Wednesday’s Central Alberta senior high boys basketball 4A zone semifinal against the visiting Notre Dame Cougars.Not so fast.

Perhaps the Red Deer Optimist Chiefs were already in celebration mode.The Chiefs, with a 2-0 series lead, had an opportunity to close out their Alberta Midget Hockey League South Division semifinal with the UFA Bisons Sunday at the Arena, but as it turned out it was an opportunity wasted.

The Red Deer Sutter Fund Chiefs head coach Tom Bast is a stickler for details.He calls himself a perfectionist, pushing his hockey team to work on fundamentals so they’re playing at the top of their game come playoff time.

The competition at the Westerner Agricentre this weekend will be intense and as sharp as an arrow.Roughly 600 archers from across Western Canada and the United States will participate in the Mother of All Shoots XII, hosted by the Central Alberta Archers Association.

Two of the most successful coaches in Red Deer Optimist Chiefs’ history are going head-to-head in the best-of-five Alberta Midget Hockey League South Division semifinal, which opened at the Arena Wednesday.Former head coach Dan MacDonald, who took the Chiefs to four national finals, finishing second twice, is in his first season with the UFA Bisons while Doug Quinn is on the bench for the two-time defending Telus Cup champion Chiefs.

Red Deer native Tanner Jaillet is the winner of the Alberta Junior Hockey League top goaltender award for the 2013-14 season as voted on by the league’s general managers and coaches.The Fort McMurray Oil Barons netminder opened the season with 10 straight wins and 13 games without a regulation-time loss.