Lethbridge high-schoolers Ryan Evans and Dray Walburger took home gold medals as members of Team Alberta’s men’s basketball team earlier this month at the 2019 Western Canada Summer (WCSG) games in Swift Current, Sask.
The 16-year-old athletes attend Lethbridge Collegiate Institute (LCI) and have played both basketball and football together.
Evans agreed that pre-existing chemistry was a nice bonus as they started to train with Team Alberta.
“We like just kind of knew where each other were on the court,” Evans said. “It helped a lot.”
As members of Team Alberta, they went undefeated in the round robin before facing Team Saskatchewan in the final. A decisive 90-70 win secured them the gold medal.
“We played well as a team,” Walburger said.
Alberta led the 2019 WCSG medal standings with 299 total podium appearances, including 129 golds.
Team Alberta featured more than a dozen Lethbridge representatives, with athletes and coaches hailing from the city competing in an array of the competition’s 16 events.
For Evans and Walburger, the opportunity was a chance to compete at a high level during the off-season, before high school sports begin.
Evans said he will continue to play basketball in his final two years of high school, even though his ambitions lie in football and track and field.
“I’ll always play basketball because it’s fun, and I like to be with my friends and everything; and I’m not bad at it, I guess,” he laughed.
For Walburger, his goals now lie solely in basketball after quitting football, and he has high hopes for his final two years of high school ball.
With his love of the game, Walburger said the growth of basketball in Canada has been neat to watch.