NEWS PHOTO KELLEN TANIGUCHI
Sloan Akins waits under the basket as Collin Gripp competes in the ASAA free throw competition on Thursday morning.
ktaniguchi@medicinehatnews.com@@kellentaniguchi
With high school sport seasons cancelled for the year, the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association is challenging high school students throughout the province to compete in a virtual free-throw competition.
Each student will get 20 free-throw attempts which will be recorded, and their score will be sent to the ASAA – the student with the highest score will win a Spalding basketball and ASAA gear. Athletes at Monsignor McCoy High School were in the gym on Thursday morning shooting their shot.
“This is probably the most competition I’m going to get all year,” said Claire Holt, 17.
Holt is a point guard for the senior team at the school and says although she won’t be able to play any games in her Grade 12 year, she’s happy to still be in the gym.
“It’s been really incredible to spend this last year still being able to play the sport I love, spend time with my amazing coach I have played for the last three years, being with the team and getting to know the athletes, not only in my grade level but also the younger athletes … to just play with them and help them grow into athletes and have the same experience that I did when I was in their grade,” she said.
Holt sank 18 of 20 free throws, while Sloan Akins, a Grade 10 student on the boys’ basketball team drained 19.
“It’s nice because it’s been a bit of a disappointing season and we haven’t really had any form of competition. So, it’s good to have some form of competition against schools across the province,” said Akins.
BJ Melle, coach of the school’s men’s basketball team for the last 19 years, says it was nice to have an event like this and the team has been working on the fundamentals this year at practice, and he has already seen a lot of improvement over the past five weeks.
“I’ve just been really proud of our kids,” he said. ” … our kids have been working really hard and we’ve been proud of the effort that we’ve got considering there’s no big reward of getting to play a game for these kids.”
Hat High is also getting involved with the ASAA’s free-throw competition. The school’s athletic director says he’s also been impressed with the commitment of the athletes this year, especially since there are no games.
“The kids are committed. They show up. We don’t have to hound them,” said Chad Watson. “This morning I got here at 7:15 in the morning and I was the fifth person in the building. There were kids waiting for me at 7:15 this morning.”
Watson is also the school’s boys basketball coach and says this year he didn’t have to make any cuts and has more than 30 Grade 10 and 11 boys training this year.
“Our school and our coaches are giving kids an opportunity to train under AHS guidelines and we’re maxed out,” said Watson. “Kids want to participate, kids want to be in the gym, they want to train.”
