Local High School Athletes Stay Busy During Summer Break

With the summer break in full swing high school athletes are getting very little reprieve from workouts.  The summer season is chock full of camps, open gyms, weights, and tournaments.  Not to mention the fact that several of the young people have taken on full time jobs. Balancing their time with sports, workouts, jobs, and friends is something that several local youth will face this summer.  I had the opportunity to go watch a couple of groups of young men do that very thing this past weekend when I attended a summer basketball tournament at Snake River High School.  Both the Grace and Soda Springs boys teams participated in the event.  

Though it is often referred to as a tournament it is closer to a scrimmage.  There are no brackets or champions crowned, just lots of basketball against some teams that you might not usually face during the regular season.  As is the case with summer ball it is difficult to get all potential players to be available for every tournament.  That was the case for both Soda and Grace this past weekend.  Neither team had a full roster of upperclassmen resulting in each school only entering one team in the varsity schedule.  In other words no jv or c-teams from either school.  Each team was scheduled for five games over a two day period.  Some of the game rules and regulations were adjusted from the regular season to accommodate the quick turnaround for the teams involved.  Some of the changes were that games would consist of two eighteen minute halves with a running clock, fouls on the shot would result in just one foul shot being taken, that if made would count as two points, and each team was only allowed one timeout per half. 

 Both local teams were missing several senior key players but still boasted some good talent.  Soda Springs faced the tougher draw in the tournament as they had to take on several larger schools.  Grace meanwhile faced a mix of 1A and 2A schools.  The Cardinals battled hard throughout the two days keeping many of their games close against the bigger schools.  The highlight for Soda came when they got a win in overtime over their only small school opponent, a very talented Carey team.  Like the rest of the tournament the overtime rules were different than usual.  Here it was simply the first team to score four points.  The Cardinals got their four points without allowing Carey to score a single point.  The Grizzlies meanwhile had big wins over West Jefferson, Aberdeen, and Watersprings Chiristian while losing two close games to Carey by one point and district rival Butte County by six points.  In the end it was a great opportunity for both teams to get some of their younger less experienced guys some time on the court to prepare them for next season.