Brandon Webster believes the North Park Collegiate Trojans will have plenty of confidence and momentum on their side next week when they head to Kitchener to defend their Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association AAA senior boys basketball championship.
The Trojans stalled a fourth-quarter rally by the St. John's College Green Eagles and went on to score a 41-32 victory at Assumption College on Thursday night to capture their second consecutive Brant County championship.
The Trojans won the Brant County best-of-three final 2-0 to advance to CWOSSA AAA championship tournament Feb. 25 and 26.
Brantford Collegiate Institute Mustangs are also eligible for the AAA tournament.
The Mustangs defeated the Paris District High School Panthers 42-36 in Paris on Wednesday to become Brant Country's representative for a challenge game for the CWOSSA tournament.
The Mustangs will meet Owen Sound West Hill on Tuesday at BCI in their challenge game.
The Eagles will play in the CWOSSA AAAA championship tournament Feb. 25 and 26 in Waterloo.
"That's a big momentum pusher towards CWOSSA and definitely having a win over St. John's, a good team, will have our confidence up for CWOSSA," said Webster, one of three fifth-year Grade 12s, who use their experience to guide the Trojans.
The other fifth-year Grade 12s are Cale McDonald and Tyler Johnston.
Although the Trojans lost Mike Dulmage, David Eves and Mark Dickens from last season's starting five, they still have a veteran lineup Grade 12s Marcus Hamilton and Logan Varga.
Head coach Todd Andrew uses Grade 11 students Marcus Jones and Nick Minutillo as though their seasoned pros.
The Trojans also have Eric Hamilton, Landon McCulloch and Chris Silla -all Grade 11 students -coming off the bench.
"Our biggest competition (at CWOSSA) will probably be St. James of Guelph," predicted Webster.
"They have a really good team. We've heard really good stories about them. Hopefully, we can keep the intensity up on the defensive end."
The Trojans appeared to be on cruise control as they built leads of 14-6 after the first quarter, 27-15 at the half and 33-17 after three quarters.
However, the Green Eagles went on a 10-point run to start the fourth quarter and it took a pair of foul shot by Webster with 3:21 remaining to put a damper on the St. John's parade.
Webster finished with a team-leading 12 points. Johnston got 10 points and Jones eight.
J.P. Yurcich scored 13 points for the Eagles. Tyler Van Leeuwen got nine and Matt Digout added five.
"It was definitely god defence on our part," said Webster. 'That's been the key all year although it was a bit questionable late.
'It was kind of scary (the St. John's run) but we just needed to stay composed. The team has done a good job of that all year and we pulled it out in the end."
Article Retrieved From: http://brantfordexpositor.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2984174
No comments:
Post a Comment