The RDC Queens looked in mid-season form to start the annual RDC Basketball Thanksgiving Classic.
They opened the weekend preseason tournament against the Okanagan College Coyotes and cruised to an 86-46 victory. After three of losses on the road last weekend, head coach Ken King said the effort and intensity was much closer to regular season play.
“Much better defensive effort than we saw last weekend. That allowed us to get a little bit more going early and showed us the fruits of our labour. Making sure that when we do it on the defensive end, good things happen,” said Queens head coach Ken King.
Sandra Garcia-Bernal led the way for the Queens. The second-year guard from Spain played tenacious defence in the win and also contributed 19 points on offence.
“She’s our motor, then it becomes the challenge for the rest of the team, do you rise up and match her and try and exceed her energy level? Or do you allow her to make you look slow,” King said.
”Today, everyone did a good job to follow that motor and match her as much as they could.”
First-year Amy Szymanek knocked down several threes for the Queens, a key point of emphasis for the squad this season. Szymanek had 12 points in the win.
“We’d like to get a few more threes. I’d like to get some better threes than we got today. Ones off a little more action and more open. We would like to take and make a few more,” King said.
King believes with a smaller lineup, defence and fast-paced play will ultimately be their calling card in 2018-19.
“You can’t be small and slow. We are small and we want to make sure our pace of play is high,” King added.
The Queens will hit the floor on Friday at 2 p.m. and then play the Concordia University of Edmonton Thunder with tip-off at 6 p.m.
In the late game, the Kings lost a nail-biter 98-97 to the Keyano College Huskies. Thursday was the first taste of preseason action for the new-look Kings.
Huskies player Brandon Sarpong hit a three-point shot with almost no time on the clock to put Keyano ahead 98-97.
After a discussion by the referees, it was determined one second was left on the clock. The Kings used a timeout and advanced the ball into the half court, but Spencer Klassen wasn’t able to hit a three for the victory.
“Hats off to that Keyano team, that’s a good basketball team. We were able to in spurts do things that we’ve been talking about, but not consistently enough,” said Kings head coach Clayton Pottinger.
“In a game this close it boils down to one extra possession… you can point to a million different things, but that’s why the little things matter.”
Klassen, a third-year guard from Red Deer was the reason the Kings had a shot at a win in the first place. He poured in a game-high 38 points and was on fire from three-point range most of the second half.
“He had a hell of a game. Shot the ball really well and kept us going offensively when there was a little bit of a lull,” Pottinger said.
The Kings trailed 26-15 after the first quarter and were down 44-35 at half. They led 67-62 in the third but weren’t able to completely pull away from the Huskies.
Kevin Szymanek was big for RDC with 14 points and fifth-year forward Eric Bakker had 18 in the loss. Pottinger said those players will need to be big all season for the Kings.
“Kevin was a beast on the boards when he got those opportunities in there,” he said.
”I was happy to see those three guys, who are leaders and returning players do what leaders should do a step up when the team needed it.”
For the Kings, there are plenty of kinks to iron out as the tournament progresses this weekend, but Pottinger noted there were a number of good signs on Thursday.
“I want to see them continue to play hard. We have to battle a little bit more in certain situations to make sure we come up with a few more possessions,” he said.
“We’ve got to communicate a lot better. We were a lot of times quiet on the floor. Quiet means confused.”
The Kings will play the Okanagan College Coyotes Friday at 6 p.m.
Email sports tips to Byron Hackett
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