After a few delays earlier in January and a break for exams, the high school senior basketball season jumped into action Thursday evening at Porter Creek Secondary School.

The Porter Creek Rams hosted the F.H. Collins Secondary School Warriors in the first Super Hoops games of the season.

In the girl’s game, the Warriors picked up from where they left off in their undefeated season last year en route to the Yukon Championship crown.

After 40 minutes, the Warriors beat the Rams in a repeat of last year’s championship game by a score of 79-35. The Warriors were in charge right from the opening tip-off, led by Jayden Demchuk in her third year with the senior team.

She was also awarded player of the game honours for her team.

Second-year head coach Chris Kirk said although it was a convincing victory in their opening game of the season, there is still a lot to work on moving forward.

“Oh, lots of things,” she said when asked what the team needs to focus on. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“It’s those little habits of hustling and really focusing in on defence.”

The Rams were led offensively by Kate Hannah and Vanessa Bekkar who was named the Rams player of the game.

The Rams team were the only senior team that didn’t travel to Alaska at the beginning of the month to compete in the Don Hather Tournament and they will be right back on the court tonight to host the Vanier Catholic Secondary School Crusaders.

The Warriors will be back on the court next Thursday and Friday playing two games as the Super Hoops host. The powerhouse team faced tough competition in Skagway finishing 3-3 and Kirk said it was a good learning experience.

“To see just how hard the Americans play, they’re super aggressive and I think it is always a good thing to be playing against teams that are very competitive,” Kirk said.

The boys teams took to the court next with a young Warriors team, some who have never played at this level before, giving it their all on the court and showing their enthusiasm on the bench. Even down 30 points, the bench continued showing their support right to the final whistle, standing up and applauding good plays.

The more experienced Rams team won the physical affair 84-52 and will be right back on the court tonight against the perennial powerhouse Crusaders who went undefeated last year and have won an unprecedented six straight Yukon titles.

“Vanier is definitely the perennial team to beat,” Rams assistant coach Paul MacDonald said. “They got the best players, those kids play the most basketball in town, they’re well-coached.”

But in sports anything can happen and MacDonald said that is the message for the players heading into the matchup.

“Play tough defence and see what happens,” he said. “There’s always a chance.”

Even though the Rams ended up with a convincing win over the Warriors, MacDonald said the game highlighted elements they still need to improve on moving forward.

“We could have done a little better job on the boards boxing out, but overall I think it was a pretty good start,” he said.

“We liked the intensity that the boys showed.”

Tonight’s action at Porter Creek starts at 5 p.m. with the girl’s game followed by the boy’s matchup against the Crusaders.