The J.A. Williams High School senior girls basketball team finished in fourth place during the North East 3A Zone Championships, which were hosted in Lac La Biche March 9-10.
While the club would have preferred a medal, coach Mitch Wainman noted they started out the year losing to St. Paul by 37 points, but ended up finishing ahead of them in zones.
"This team has come a long way to finish ahead of St. Paul,” he said.
The Sharks started out Friday afternoon at the Bold Center by defeating Father Patrick Mercredi Community High School from Fort McMurray 48-29.
The two teams were fairly close initially, with the Sharks leading by just five points at the end of the first half.
However, J.A. Williams pulled out to a sizeable lead in the second half and were up 38-25 by the end of the third quarter.
In their second match played at Aurora Middle School on Saturday morning, the Sharks faced Holy Rosary High School from Lloydminster, the top-ranked 3A girls team in the province.
Needless to say, it did not go in Lac La Biche’s favour, with Lloydminster rolling to 88-43 win.
That pushed J.A. Williams into the bronze-medal match that afternoon against Westwood High School from Fort McMurray.
The two sides were extremely evenly-matched and traded the lead back throughout.
Unfortunately, Westwood managed to pull ahead with a single basket in the final minute and J.A. Williams was unable to tie the score, falling 62-60.
Although they ended with a loss, Wainman said he was proud of how the senior girls played.
He said they surprised him from the get-go this year, as they had a lot of Grade 10 girls with not a lot of basketball experience and only a handful of Grade 11 and 12 players.
He indicated that the J.A. Williams girls team has not done as well as fourth place at zones in a long time.
Meanwhile, the J.A. Williams senior boys had even less luck this weekend at zones, losing both of their matches to Holy Rosary on Friday afternoon and Westwood on Saturday morning. Both games were at the Bold Center.
