After missing her team's previous tournament for a swim meet, Rachael teBulte wasn't about to let anything stop her from playing in the next tournament. Not even a root canal.
TeBulte, who is a grade 10 forward on the Stanley Humphries junior girls basketball team, missed the Rockers first game at the Penticton tournament this past weekend, but was able to coerce her Dad into driving her from Castlegar to the Southern Okanagan city, just in time for the team's second game Friday.
"Yeah, I got my Dad to drive me," she said. "My chin hurt but I felt I should come and play because I had already missed a tournament."
Last week at swim practice for the Kootenay Swim Club, teBulte hit her chin on the bottom of the pool. After a few days of a sore jaw, she went to see the doctor and it was determined she had an abscess tooth which needed a root canal. She got the surgery done in Castlegar on Friday afternoon and was on the road shortly after to Penticton.
The team was glad to have teBulte back on the court. She even picked up the team's player of the game honours in that game with her strong hustle.
Unfortunately, the team lost to a very good Lord Tweedsmuir team from Surrey.
With the strong competition at the Penticton tournament, SHSS came out winless in four games, but it was a great learning experience.
"I felt we did good and that it was a great learning experience for us to get better as a team," said teBulte. "Overall, we did a good job fast breaking. I though our defence was pretty good all weekend."
The Rockers fared better on the second day but still came up short, falling to Penticton 9s 31-26 after having a nine point lead. Jenna Kalmakoff picked up player of the game for SHSS after scoring six points and playing solid defence.
In their last game of the tournament against Merritt, the Rockers had a nice comeback in the fourth quarter but fell short, losing 21-19. Player of the game for SHSS was guard Angela Soukeroff who led the team with eight points. Soukeroff had to log plenty of minutes in the second half and performed well after an eye injury to starting point guard Rebecca Liszt, who was named to team's top player in the tournament.
The junior Rockers have a busy week this week with home league games Wednesday against L.V. Rogers from Nelson and Thursday against J.L. Crowe from Trail.