Light 63 Dark 54
Jessica Foley has the talent and athletic ability to be a solid college basketball player.
She also has the bloodlines as she follows in the footsteps of her aunt, Kim Foley, who was a star with the University of Lethbridge.
“I always wanted to play basketball since I was little as my aunt played at the university level and the sport won me over,” said Foley after helping the Light team to a 63-54 victory over the Dark squad in the Central Alberta 1A/2A senior girls’ all-star game at RDC Tuesday.
Meanwhile on the boys side the Dark team downed he Light squad 79-50.
While Foley is leaning toward playing basketball in college, that wasn’t always the case.
“I spent all year battling between basketball and volleyball . . . between university and college, but I’ve decided it’s basketball,” said the six-foot-two Foley, who does play with the Queens Volleyball Club’s U18 program.
“Now it’s between Red Deer and SAIT.”
Foley will attend both school’s ID camp before making a decision, but you get the feeling she wouldn’t mind staying close to home.
“It would be nice to spend a couple of years here,” she said.
“I’ve talked with Dawn (Queens head coach Dawn Smyth) and she said it would be a good year to come in as they’re in a good building program. As well, I’ve talked with her about practising and scrimmaging with the team so see where I fit in.”
Foley has always worked on her post play, which should benefit her coming into college. The fact is, she learned from one of the best.
“Kim coached some here (at RDC) and coached in high school in Rimbey when I was in junior high,” she said.
“I got a chance to play some with the high school girls and learned all the moves. Also the coaches I’ve talked to have told me that I’m more athletic than a lot of post players so I can play with the bigger girls.”
But Foley knows she still has some work to do.
“I need to be stronger for sure as they’s some pretty big girls in college.”
Foley, who had eight points Tuesday, put together a good final year of high school as she helped the Spartans to a third-place finish in the provincial 2A championships in Peace River.
“It was a great experience,” she said. “We had a young team and we improved so much during the season.”
The Spartans went into the provincials ranked sixth. They lost to Le Crete 52-44 in the semifinals before beating Willow Creek of Claresholm 58-52 in the third-place game.
Shannon Campbell of Eckville led the Light team with 12 points while Bonita Knopp of David Thompson added eight and Whitney Silvernagel of Delburne six. Shelby Brown of Bentley had 17 points for the Dark side while Crista Oke of Red Deer Koinonia and Meryl Wiersma of Central Alberta Christian of Lacombe added 10 each.
Dark 79 Light 50
The Dark squad led from the outset, leading 18-6, 41-19 and 66-36 by quarters.
Jeff Diep of the River Glen Royals led the winners with 13 points while teammate Ryan Hayward added 12. Nathan Zantingh of Central Alberta Christian and Daniel Sutherland of St. Dominic’s of Rocky Mountain House had eight points each, Kyle Stefanyk of Rimbey seven and Levi Steel of River Glen six.
Kody Pritchard of David Thompson and Matthew Murphy of Pigeon Lake had 10 points each for the Light team while Lane Prins and Mike Vos, both of David Thompson, added six each.
Contact Danny Rode at drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com