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Red Lake 8th Grade Boys and Girls Tournament Action - P3

Bemidji, MN- The RL 8th grade boys and girls teams took part in this year's tournament. The girls tipped off Friday night against Bemidji and were not able to overcome a slow 12-0 start but once they got warmed up they played well and fell by 14. In game 2 on Saturday morning they faced the Aitken Gobblers and it was a very close physical game with lots of good defense on both ends that had saw us down 13-16 at the half and ended up with the Gobblers on top by a final of 38-28. In the 3rd place game at 3pm they ran into a familiar foe in the Kelliher/Northome Mustangs, who had beat our girls during the regular season match ups, but this time we were with extra firepower with 3 girls that had played on our JV&Varsity teams throughout the year in 8Th grader Angle McClain and 7th graders Lashaun Roy and Gerika Kingbird! The girls finally developed some good chemistry together and came out on fire to take a 22-6 halftime lead and go on to get the victory 48-24!

This is a very talented group that will do well once they find their chemistry, as they haven't played together much this year, but have made it to the Pacesetter State tournament the past two years and are looking for their 3rd trip in a row on April 12!

The team was made up of:

Front row L-R: Mimi Morgan-Beaulieu (6G) Marlene Blue, Kaylynn Chaboyea (7G)

Back row L-R: Lashaun Roy, Trina Headbird, Angel McClain, Selena Jourdain, Gerika Kingbird, Keylahna McClain (6G)

In boys action Saturday night we tipped off against the Grand Forks Magic at 6pm in what would be a very good matchup against a team that featured two very big and good post players that made us work hard but we were able to hold our own behind some hot shooting by Evan Johnson and Justin Barrett with 14 first half points! In the 2nd half we made the adjustment to put the full court press on and make it hard for them to get it to their post players and it paid off well and we forced lots of steals and went on to get the W 41-30! Game 2 was at 8pm and we faced the hometown team of Bemidji B, whom we had faced before and got some big wins, however they came to play this game and gave us all kinds of trouble that saw the halftime score 19-19! Adjustments were made to go with a full court man to man defense that proved to be the right call as we held them scoreless for 9minutes and we caught fire to go on to win 58-29!

Game 3 was Sunday at 1 against an All Star team featuring the best players from the Moorhead area. We started out good but early foul trouble had two starters sitting on the bench midway through the first half and saw us down 20-21 at the half. The second half was just as exciting as it went back and forth with them going up by as much as 7 before we would come back and take a small lead in this seesaw battle of two very good teams. The full court press was delayed until the final 3 minutes because of the foul trouble of the two players who each had 4, but once we put it on we forced enough turnovers to get us back into the game from down 5 with less than two minutes to go! However, we missed all 4 chances we had to take the lead or tie and they hit two big free throws with 10 seconds left to seal the victory 44-40 in a very exciting, entertaining game!

Game 4 was against Bemidji A, we needed a victory by 19 to force a 3 way tie for first and we came out and grabbed an early lead, but this was against Bemidji's A squad and they had beat Moorhead by 14 and they adjusted well and played some very good basketball that saw this game as a classic championship battle that had them in front 14-13! In the second half we were unable to match their shots and they ended up with a victory in a hard flight battle that due to the tie breaker rule and point differential earned us a 2nd place finish! These boys played their hardest and left it all on the court and faced some of their stiffest competition to date as the best teams from around the area come to play in this tourney! We also had a nice amount of fans in the crowd, which was good to see, they were treated to some good basketball as these boys are a very talented group who've only lost 5 games in two years, all against teams in some big tournaments, which is a benefit of these big tourneys as we get to play against teams we never played and teams from Class 3&4A that are always a challenge and allow us to get some good experience in big time pressure situations!

Next up for both of these teams as well as the 9th grade boys and the upcoming stars in the 5th grade are the Pacesetter Regionals in Crookston on April 11-12! If you like to watch basketball, come on out and support these teams, I guarantee you won't be disappointed!

Huge thanks to the Red Lake Donations committe, Tribal Council and Parents for getting your kids there to play.

The team from L-R

Front row: Jamie Auginash, Jr. Keon Dow, Cyras Whitefeather, Jaren Barrett

Back row: Chris Jourdain, Coach, Evan Johnson, Mark Kingbird, Jr. Harlan Kingbird, III, Michael Seki, Jr. Jalen Kelly, David Smith, Brenden Desjarlait, Tyrell Desjarlait, Justin Barrett

 

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