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UNITY ‑ The Unity Composite High School Warriors girls’ basketball team hit a bump on the road in their 3A Hoopla quest, losing their semifinal game to St. Walburg 59-50, in Indian Head March 25; the girls rebounded, however, to win the bronze medal against Kamsack March 26.

In the semifinal, the Warriors saw an early 10-4 lead slip away through the last half of the first quarter, to end the quarter behind 10-13. Although the Unity girls were often within a basket of tying the game, the half ended with a 31-25 lead for St. Walburg. While Unity was able to close the gap occasionally, the third quarter ended at 40-29 for St. Walburg, and the final score was 59-50 for St. Walburg.

Kierra Bosch was a powerhouse for Unity in the semifinal, putting up 22 points.

After СÀ¶ÊÓƵ ranked second in the province and having originally set their sites on the gold medal game at Hoopla, the team had to regroup to play again the next morning, in the bronze medal game against Kamsack.

Coach Aaron Melnyk said, “It’s always hard coming off a big loss, especially when you know you could have gotten the win on Friday night against a team that we had beaten in the past. That СÀ¶ÊÓƵ said, I was really impressed with how the team was able to let that go and rebounded for Saturday morning to compete in the bronze medal game. We had a very short turnaround time to rest and formulate a new plan to finish our season with a win.”

In the bronze medal game, Unity took an early lead but at half-time, the game was tied 26-26. The second half of the game was an exciting one with Unity pulling back into the lead several times, only to see Kamsack push to tie the score again or even at times taking a slight lead. Early in the fourth quarter, however, Unity was able to re-take the lead and maintain it through to the final score of 59-50.

As Melnyk said, “Once the girls settled into the game, they left it all out on the court for our final game and we are elated with back-to-back bronze Hoopla medals.”

In this final game of the season, the high point scorers were Dailyn Wagner with 19 points and Devyn McLean with 17.

Devyn, along with Jenna Wildeman and Raicky Baes, are the only three players who will be graduating this year so the UCHS Warriors look to be in good shape for next year, having three Grade 11s and four Grade 10s with Hoopla experience to lead the new players who will join them from Grade 9.

Congratulations, Mr. Melnyk and the 2021-22 UCHS girls’ basketball team.