That's the day that the 2010 edition of the Heinbuch Classic Tournament kicks off, and it gets underway with a "quadruple header" at St. Mary's --- each game featuring one CWOSSA team.
The tournament opener, slated for 3:00pm on Thursday, features last year's defending Heinbuch and OFSAA AAAA champions, Toronto Oakwood against Brantford's North Park Collegiate. Both clubs will be sporting different rosters than last year ---- for Oakwood, star guard Julian Clarke has departed for NCAA D-1 Santa Clara University, but the Barons still return a ton of talent and will be a very difficult matchup for the Trojans, who lost the majority of their starting lineup to graduation.
At 4:30pm on Thursday, last year's CWOSSA runners-up (and OFSAA participants), the Guelph JF Ross Royals will play arguably one of the best teams in Ontario in the Oakville Loyola Hawks. The Hawks, who will participate at the AAAA level this season, were last year's silver medalists at the OFSAA "AAA" tournament and are led by one of the top point guards in Ontario high school basketball, Mike L'Africain.
The 6:15pm Thursday game sees Waterloo SJAM do battle with London's HB Beal, who were last year's "bronze division" champions after dropping a double-overtime thriller to Waterloo Bluevale in the opening round, thanks in part to Stefan Cvrkalj's crazy buzzer beater (YouTube link).
The finale on Thursday night sees the Kitchener Resurrection Phoenix do battle with a historically strong team out of Toronto in Northern Secondary School.
The other two CWOSSA participants will open up their Heinbuch tournament on Friday, starting with the St. Mary's Eagles hosting Sarnia St. Christopher at 12 noon. St. Christopher features an excellent brother scoring tandem in Joe (5th year) and Mike (Grade 11) Rocca, who have both put up ridiculous numbers at area tournaments over the past several seasons. Mike scored 31.3 PPG at last year's Luke Santi Invitational junior tournament.
The defending CWOSSA AAAA champs, Waterloo's Bluevale Knights, will also play at noon on Friday over at Huron Heights in Kitchener. The Knights will be in tough against a Mother Teresa (Scarborough) squad that were last year's OFSAA AAAA bronze medalists. This will actually be a rematch of Bluevale's first game at the OFSAA championship last season, which was a 68-43 victory for Mother Teresa.
"It will give us a good test as to (see) where we are as a team," said Knights bench boss Doros Theodosiou.
So, there you have it. It won't be an easy draw for the locals by any stretch of the imagination ---- but then again, you wouldn't expect an "easy" draw at one of the most prestigious early season high school tournaments around.
As for CWOSSA's best chances in the first round? I think you have to take a serious look at the two D8 schools --- St. Mary's in particular. They will be playing at lunch hour at home in a packed gym, and that has historically worked out pretty well for them. Sarnia St. Christopher is a very solid team (having defeated Resurrection by 4 at the Rez tournament last year) but SMHS may be able to ride the emotion to victory.
Though Kitchener CI did make the tournament final back in 2004, no Kitchener or Waterloo high school has ever won the championship (or the "silver division" for that matter --- though a Cambridge school, Preston, did take the silver division in 2002). The last CWOSSA champion was Brantford's Assumption College, back in 1999.
The full draw, top to bottom, is as follows:
Toronto Oakwood vs. Branford North Park (Thurs., 3pm, St. Mary's)
Waterloo SJAM vs. London HB Beal (Thurs., 6:15pm, St. Mary's)
Kitchener St. Mary's vs. Sarnia St. Christopher (Fri., Noon, St. Mary's)
Ajax J. Clarke Richardson vs. St. Catharines Governor Simcoe (Fri., 1:30pm, St. Mary's)
Oakville Loyola vs. Guelph JF Ross (Thursday, 4:30pm, St. Mary's)
Kitchener Resurrection vs. Toronto Northern (Thursday, 7:45pm, St. Mary's)
Scarborough Mother Teresa vs. Waterloo Bluevale (Friday, Noon, Huron Heights)
Hamilton St. Thomas More vs. Ottawa Sir Robert Borden (Friday, 1:30pm, Huron Heights)
Note: J Clarke Richardson, Oakwood, Mother Teresa and Loyola were recognized as the "top seeds" by the tournament organizing committee. As such, they would not play each other until the semifinals at the earliest if all goes according to form.
No comments:
Post a Comment