The Cochrane Eagles U18 boys basketball team has claimed the Alberta Club Collective Basketball League championship

At Calgary's JV Centre, they won all three of their playoff games over the weekend to earn the title, including a 68-67 overtime win against Genesis Black in the divisional final.

Previous to that, they dominated the Edge School, 83-50, in their opening game.

The Eagles came back from an early 10-0 deficit to beat the Pivot Basketball Club, 70-61, in the championship game.

Head coach Kris Nielson says the divisional final against Genesis was intense.

"For all intents and purposes, this was the championship game, so we came out hard going after them. They did the same, and it was a real back-and-forth battle all game long."

The Eagles had a small lead until Genesis staged a comeback in the fourth. The Eagles were behind one point with 15 seconds remaining when they capitalized on a free throw to tie it up, then got the stop on defense to send the game into overtime.

Nielson is proud of his team and calls it a feather in the cap for the much smaller Eagles program that was only able to resume play in September

High school teams at both Cochrane High and Bow Valley will reap some benefit from their success. Ten of the 12 players will be playing high school basketball here, five for the Bobcats, five for the Cobras.

Nielson is coaching the Bow Valley Bobcats seniors boy team in Rocky View divisional play this season. Team tryouts started yesterday and began for the school's junior boys and senior girls tryouts on Nov. 15. The junior girls' team tryouts start shortly.

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