Siksika wins Foothills League basketball tournament

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In their first year of competition in the Foothills High School Basketball League, the Siksika Nation High School captured top honors with a 70-67 win in a hard fought race to the finish on March 8.

Their win over the Foothills High School at the Highwood High School in High River was a see-saw affair with Siksika ahead by 10 in the first half with Foothills coming back in the second half to move ahead by 10.

Siksika caught up again and see-sawed through the few dying minutes to win the tournament with their top scorer being Jay Wolfleg who scored 26 points and his cousin, Troy, notching 17 more.

Coached by Scotty Many Guns and Richard Running Rabbit, the Siksika team was sitting in fourth going into the semi-finals on March 3. They upset Okotoks' Holy Trinity School by 30 points with the final score of 86 to 56.

Winning the league title can be viewed as quite an accomplishment given the fact Siksika is only a 2A school while their competition were larger schools in the 3A category.

The Siksika team has now been together for about three years. This year, it defeated Olds in the Three Hills Tournament on January 8 to 9, then beat out Taber to win the Jan. 29 to 30 Bow Island Championship. Then on to Rosemary on Feb. 26 to 27.

Other players for Siksika included Joe Calf, Benjamin and Steven Calf Robe, Norvin Eagle Speaker, Del Scalplock, Benji Strangling Wolf (their tallest player at 6'5"), Tyler Winnipeg and Keven Yellowfly. Winnipeg was selected for the 1A-2A Zone All Star game in which he was named MVP for the South-Central Zone which beat out the East Zone All Stars.

Jay Wolfleg talks about going to college eventually where he would like to make its team. Wolfleg along with key players Benjamin, Benji, Joe, Keiven and Troy will be returning to play for Siksika this fall for another season. Most of the boys began their training under Many Guns back in '93 at Crowfoot School on the Siksika Reserve.