MEDICINE HAT — RDC Kings obviously can’t stand prosperity.
A day after whipping the Medicine Hat Rattlers 103-74 the Kings dropped a 72-65 decision to the Rattlers in Alberta Colleges Men’s Basketball League play Saturday.
“It was a throw-back to the SAIT weekend,” said Kings head coach Clayton Pottinger.
“We dominate the game Friday then didn’t have the same intensity the second day.”
But the Kings did have a major setback when star forward Rob Pierce broke his nose in the second quarter, when hit with an elbow from his own teammate. “That seemed to shake up everyone and we certainly didn’t play the same, at least until the final quarter,” added Pottinger.
The Kings trailed 56-41 after three quarters, before finally getting on track and closing the margin to three.
“But that was it,” said Pottinger. “But also don’t take anything away from Medicine Hat. They have a good team, with two excellent guards. And their forwards played well Saturday, which they didn’t do Friday.”
Ashaunti Hogan led the Kings with 20 points while Pierce did have 13 points and 13 rebounds. Mari Peoples-Wong had 10 points.
Pierce will get a chance to recover as the Kings have a week off before playing in the ACAC final eight in Fort McMurray.
Rattlers 60 Queens 50
The Queens had all their players back Saturday, and despite a 60-50 loss to the Rattlers, showed improvement over a 73-49 loss Friday.
“We played well the second half Friday after a slow start,” said Queens head coach Mike Woollard. “We were much better the second day, despite the fact we’re still not 100 per cent healthy.”
The Queens had Amrei Bondzio, Desirae Paterson and Dedra Janvier all in the lineup, despite not being completely healthy.
“They’re still not back to where they could be, but then everyone has injuries this time of the year,” said Woollard, who was pleased that the team showed up when the game meant nothing in the standings.
“The girls wanted to play and showed up, which I was proud of,” said Woollard. “For us to be where we are physically and play that hard says something about everyone on the team.”
Bondzio led the Queens with 15 points while Paterson had 11 points and 10 rebounds.
While the Queens season is done it’s far from over for Woollard, who will spend much of the next two months recruiting.
“I’ve already been out, but there’s a lot to do,” he said. “I’ll be around here for the next couples of weeks, go to the B.C. provincials, the Alberta 3A and 4A provincials and then to Saskatchewan.”
Futsal
LLOYDMINSTER — Unless there are a lot of unforeseen changes, both RDC teams reached the ACAC futsal championships, slated for March 15-16 in Olds, during the second tournamernt of the season during the weekend.
The biggest win for the Kings was a 3-2 victory over Ambrose College of Calgary on Saturday.
The win moved RDC three points up on Ambrose in the battle for the fourth and final playoff berth.
“We didn’t play great, but it was a big win,” said Kings head coach Steve Fullarton, who got goals from Alim Hirji, Geng Thian and Chase Grenier.
The Kings then lost 4-0 to Keyano College on Sunday, but Ambrose lost twice.
Earlier the Kings lost 4-1 to Medicine Hat with Grenier scoring the lone goal,.
“That game we played very well, we just couldn’t buy a goal,” said Fullarton, who got goals from Thain, Haydn McLean and Andrew Jevne in beating Olds 3-0.
The Queens did what they had to on Saturday — tying Medicine Hat 2-2 and beating Ambrose 3-0 to reach the playoffs.
The biggest news came against Medicine Hat where head coach Dave Colley moved keeper Jesse Stewart up on a corner kick late in the game and the long-time keeper scored to tie the game with 16 seconds remaining.
Paula Dadensky had the other RDC goal.
Tara Berger, Kristi Lem and Adi Moyer scored against Ambrose with Stewart recording the shutout.
The Queens, who were down to eight players by Sunday, lost 2-0 to Keyano.
“We just ran out of gas, but that’s fine,” said Colley.
“We made the playoffs.”