Article By: Jacob Robinson
An 11-point lead at the half wasn't quite comfortable enough for the Holy Trinity Titans.
In hoping to keep pace with the other top teams in the NSSAA senior boys basketball league, Holy Trinity aimed to widen their advantage over Waterford in the second half on Tuesday by clamping down on defence. The team's 10-1 run to open the third quarter and 10-3 advantage to begin the fourth allowed the team to breathe easy in a 57-37 victory.
"Our intensity on defence, we tried to get that up and that got our offence up because we were getting stops on D, fast breaking and getting easy points," Titan point guard Josh Johnson said of his team's stellar second half. "When we got the lead it was smooth sailing from there, we just still wanted to get stops."
There was no stopping Johnson on Wednesday, as he dropped 29 points including five three pointers to lead all scorers.
The Wolves entered the contest utilizing a more up-tempo offence. It worked in the sense that all but one Waterford player had at least two points, but seemed to wear the Wolves out for the final quarters.
"In our old offence, no one was really moving, so now every-one's moving so it opens up a lot more options -- we move the ball a lot quicker. It's all about quick baskets instead of trying to dribble," said Waterford's Doug Sauve, who had six points thanks to a pair of shots from beyond the arc.
"We're not used to it so we just got more tired than we usually would. ... I think we just got tired at the end, and we had a short bench today, we were missing some players."
With the top three seeds in the league -- Simcoe, Delhi and Holy Trinity -- all victorious on Tuesday, the Titans (5-2) will try and wrestle second place from the Raiders (5-2, with the tiebreaker) in their matchup on Thursday in Delhi.
"It's pretty much for second . . . so it's a pretty big game for us. Hopefully we play well, get our defensive intensity up and push right from the start," said Johnson.
The Wolves will also have some big games to play in their final three regular season dates. Following their contest with the Sabres on Thursday, they'll come out of the two-week exam break Feb. 7 to face Port Dover in a matchup that could determine the fourth and final playoff spot.
"It would be nice to make the playoffs. We didn't make the playoffs after two OFSAA seasons, so it would be nice to get back there," noted Sauve.
How each team comes out of the exam break will be crucial as the league semifinals are set to begin the following week. While there's no exact formula for success following a layoff, Johnson said the Titans would be getting back to work before the final leg of the season tips off.
"We just hopefully get in the gym a couple times, maybe a couple practices to stay sharp and keep our cardio up so when it's a close game, late in the fourth quarter we'll maybe have that edge on the other team," he said.
Jeffery Paul scored eight points to lead Waterford while Andrew Mattan chipped in with 10 for the Titans.
In the junior contest, the Wolves won a barnburner 30-28 in overtime.
As mentioned, the senior Sabres improved their record to 7-0 with a 44-30 win against Port Dover. Kevin Allemang paced Simcoe with 17 points. Lucas Martin had 11 for the Lakers.
Justin Lichach scored 21 points and fellow Raiders Jacob Leger and Johann Jenkins had 14 each as the Delhi seniors topped Valley Heights 59-24. The Bears junior squad defeated the Raiders 36-33.
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