Barely into the 2017-18 high school basketball season, the Swift Current Comp Ardens nabbed a fourth-place finish at their home tournament over the weekend.

The Ardens started the eight-team bracket-style tournament out on Friday afternoon with a 64-46 win over Moose Jaw's Vanier Collegiate Spirits.

The win boosted Swift Current into the A-side of the bracket, and forced a Saturday morning contest against Prince Albert's St. Mary's Marauders.

Swift Current couldn't duplicate the offence from their opener, falling 59-44 in the tournament semi-final. That forced a matchup with the Notre Dame Hounds for third place.

"I think our second game was a little bit disappointing, we could have done better," said Ardens guard Danica Messer. "But, we got a good matchup in the end and got to compete against a good team so I think it turned out alright."

It certainly proved to be a good matchup and an intense battle for third place.

The back-and-forth affair lasted through all 36 minutes. Notre Dame led 13-11 after the first nine-minute frame, but it was all Swift Current in the second quarter as the Ardens stormed to a 29-26 half-time lead.

"I think we were very energized and we all kind of came together," Messer noted, regarding the first-half push at both ends of the court. "We had a bit of a hard weekend but we all kind of figured each other out and started working together better."

Coming out of half-time was a performance similar to the one heading into it, as the Ardens stretched their three-point lead to five.

They carried their 42-37 lead into the fourth quarter, but that's when an apparently familiar foe appeared.

"We have a slump normally every game, it just happened at the wrong time and we didn't quite get out of it fast enough," said Ardens forward Maddie Mortensen.

The Notre Dame defence tightened in the paint, forcing more outside shots in the game's final minutes. However, the Ardens couldn't get them to fall like they could in the previous two quarters.

The Ardens got possession of the ball trailing by three points with nine seconds remaining in the game, forcing a timeout by head coach Andrew Herrick.

With a chance to tie up the game, the Ardens turned to Danica Messer, who had hit multiple threes earlier in the game.

"Well I've shot a couple of those before and I was just thinking I'll just do my thing, just shoot like I normally do and if it goes in, it goes in. If it doesn't, then we'll work from there," Messer said.

Messer hoisted up a shot from behind the arc that looked good the entire way, but it hit the rim and bounced into the arms of a Hounds defender with 3.1 seconds left to seal their fate.

The Ardens would go on to lose 55-52 to Notre Dame.

After playing three games in 29 hours, the four-quarter effort was a good indication of the progress the Ardens have seen in themselves this season already.

"I think conditioning-wise we're doing better than I expected we would," Messer said. "We didn't expect that we'd be the perfect team by now, but playing a team that good, we really stepped up and showed that we can compete against them."

"I think we're doing very well for the start of the season, I think we've noticed a lot of improvements over last year," Mortensen added. "We have big expectations for wanting to make it to Hoopla and high placement in tournaments."

Now with exhibition games and mostly practices rounding out their 2017 before the Christmas/New Years break, it's back to tuning up their game some more.

"I think communication is a big key for us," said Messer, on an area she wants to improve. "Honestly once we started communicating in the games, they all kind of came together a lot better."

"We're all very inspired to do well, and we all want to do good this year," Mortensen added, on staying focused with a long break between tournaments. "We're all very motivated to stay hungry for wins, and in practice to keep working hard."