The St. Brieux Senior Boys Basketball team and SHSAA Executive Director Lyle McKellar (far left) pose with the HOOPLA Provincial Championship and Sportsmanship Award banners. (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff).

By Aaron Schulze

Year in Review

Sports Year in Review: St. Brieux Senior Boys Basketball team wins sportsmanship banner to conclude historic season

Dec 31, 2019 | 11:07 AM

northeastNOW is taking a look back at the biggest and most interesting sports stories of 2019, as selected by our sports reporters Mat Barrett and Aaron Schulze:

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Since Head Coach Ryan Trumbley and Assistant Coach Erin Bernherd took over the St. Brieux School Senior Boys Basketball team nearly two years ago, they had two goals for their boys: win HOOPLA as provincial champions, and the sportsmanship (blue) banner.

The St. Brieux Boys accomplished half of their challenging goal by winning HOOPLA in the 2A Boys Division last year but fell short of the blue banner.

After the St. Brieux Boys won HOOPLA for the second year in a row back in March, Trumbley had a feeling they had a shot of taking home two banners.

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“When we were done HOOPLA, I called our principal and I said ‘We did everything we could,’” Trumbley told northeastNOW. “Those boys acted in a perfect way. I don’t know if we’ll get it, but we were deserving of it.

“An hour and a half after we had won the championship, one of the officials called me to tell me how proud they were of our kids and how well they acted. highWe thought maybe we could get the blue banner after that.”

Trumbley’s gut predicted the future. He and Bernherd received an email saying the St. Brieux Boys won the first blue banner in their school’s history.

“We got the boys together and they had no idea,” Trumbley said with a laugh. “They thought they were in trouble or something. We told them that they had won the blue banner and the looks on their faces were of astonishment. They looked at us with wide eyes and we told them they won it and they deserve it. They were so excited; it was a really cool feeling.

“We knew we had an incredibly talented team, but we also wanted them to be loved around the province and to be able to show how great they are. It’s as high of a goal that you can ask a sports team to do, but they met it and we couldn’t be prouder of them.”

Bernherd said the win still hasn’t sunk in.

“It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for my entire coaching career,” she said. “I’m really going to miss them. They’re such a great group of guys and they’re fun to be around. Even my own kids know them all by name and high five them on the bench.”

Winning HOOPLA and the blue banner in the same season is a difficult achievement due to numerous factors such as keeping emotions in check during a gold medal game or the host committee for the provincial championship not wanting to award the champions another banner.

However, the St. Brieux Boys stuck out from the rest of the pack, especially for Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association’s (SHSAA) Executive Director Lyle McKellar.

“They certainly had a tremendous season,” McKellar said. “For the SHSAA, it’s more about how you win those championships and the ability of the student athletes while they’re participating to be respectful, responsible, and show their integrity while they’re competing. Winning and losing is a part of sports, and it’s how you react to those situations… you can be a good sport if you lose a game, but you can also clearly demonstrate good sportsmanship when you win a game and how you respond to your opposition. That’s what put this group of young guys above and beyond; they were very respectful of their opposition and the officials in the game as well.”

One of the stories McKellar said played a part in the decision was the gold medal game at HOOPLA between St. Brieux and Norquay. At one point in the championship game, a St. Brieux player helped a fallen Norquay player get up and back in the play, instead of taking advantage of Norquay momentarily being short one man.

Both Trumbley and Bernherd have stories of how well the St. Brieux Boys interacted with other teams throughout the season.

“When we go into a gym, everyone knows them and they know them,” Trumbley said. “They don’t cheer for a specific team, they just cheer great basketball. When we were at HOOPLA we didn’t stay at the hotel, they wanted to come out and watch the other teams. We had a special relationship with the Birch Hills boys team. We watched them at the bronze medal game and the boys got the wave going for them. They’re great kids and that comes from great parents, you can tell they’ve been raised the right way and they’re just a pleasure to coach and be around.”

“They formed relationships with different teams from around the area that we played several times throughout the year,” Bernherd said. “They even have a song with one team. Other teams and other parents coming up to us and saying how their boys look forward to playing our boys, it means a lot.”

For Trumbley and Bernherd, it will be tough to top a season where they won a provincial championship, a sportsmanship banner, and received an invite for a basketball tournament in Wyoming. However, as six players graduate and Grade 8 to 10 students move up a level, the blue banner on the wall will serve as a bar for future generations of St. Brieux ballers to reach.

While the roster will change, the message will stay the same.

“We always come together and say ‘3-2-1 family’,” Trumbley said. “It really is a family atmosphere here. It’s not just [me and Bernherd] and the boys. It’s us, the boys, the school, the families, the school division… things like this can’t happen without all the support.”

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow