GIRLS PRE-SEASON HOOP TOURNAMENTS

Sault Ste. Marie will play host to a pair of pre-season senior girls high school basketball tournaments, SooToday.com has learned. The first tournament, to be held Sept. 13-14, will feature five of the seven local teams as well as Central Algoma and Wawa-Michipicoten. The five local teams will be White Pines, Korah, Bawating, Sir James Dunn and Mount St. Joseph. The two other local schools, St. Basil and St. Mary's, have already committed to an out-of-town tournament that weekend. Tournament convenor Clair Campbell said he decided to organize a pre-season tournament after finding out that Algoma University was going to host a tourney on Sept. 20-21 but only invite three local schools. "We want to develop girls high school basketball for all of the schools, not just a select few," said Campbell. Ray Barsanti, who is convening the Algoma U. tournament, extended invitations to three local schools -- St. Basil, St. Mary's and White Pines -- and five out-of-town teams. White Pines declined the invitation after deciding to play only in the tournament being run by Campbell. "We figured tournaments on back-to-back weekends before the start of the season was a bit much, especially considering that we also have some scrimmages set up," said White Pines' associate coach Dave Burden. "We don't want our team to be burned out before the season even starts."