The hope in any scholastic sports tournament is that everyone gets to share in the spoils.
That was the case this year when it comes to the NWT Power Corporation Junior Cager basketball tournament, as five schools managed to leave with titles on championship Sunday. The big winner, if you want, was Weledeh as the school won the banners in the Grade 6 boys and Grade 7 boys divisions.
The Grade 7 Boys squad defeated the Chief T'Seleyhe Eagles from Fort Good Hope in a tale of two halves. The visitors came out strong in the opening half and put the Wolves in a bit of a hole. Tyrrell Hughes, who coached the Weledeh squad, said this put his boys on the back heel.
"They played a very structured system," he said. "They took us by surprise and part of that is because of their coach, Morgan Fairweather. They preyed on our weaknesses and played us like they knew they had to."
The halftime chat from Hughes focused on forgetting the first half and getting the team back to doing what got them to the final, he said.
"It was all about finding the space and driving to the hoop," he said.
They managed to do that and it turned into plenty of trips to the free throw line, although the Eagles were still shooting the ball well enough.
"The boys did what they to do against a team that shot really well from the outside," said Hughes.
The win capped off an undefeated weekend for Hughes' outfit, which included a round-robin victory over the Eagles earlier in the tournament.
St. Pat's also came out on top in the Grade 8 boys division as they defeated East Three Secondary from Inuvik in the final. Just like Weledeh, the Irish ran the table in their division, winning all six of their games.
Leslie Karembera and Kevin Santos were the student coaches for the Irish. Karembera said he knew his team would have the advantage.
"All of our players were high performance so I kind of expected we would win," he said. "Inuvik had some good players and they were unbeaten when they faced us in the final but we set things up to have a good run."
The first half was back and forth and so was the third quarter but it was the last five minutes where the Irish started to take control.
"A lot of their players were in foul trouble and so we started attacking those players with three or four fouls," said Karembera.
This was the first time Karembera had a chance to coach a team and it's something he's looking forward to doing many times in the future.
"It's a good start to my coaching career," he said. "I'll be back because we have a title to defend."
In the other divisions, St. Joe's ended up winning the Grade 6 girls banner while William McDonald scored the Grade 7 girls banner and Chief T'seleyhe School took a banner back home by winning the Grade 8 girls crown.