Guelph Mercury: Crusaders Step up for Postseason

February 09, 2010
Rob Massey
rmassey@guelphmercury.com

Retrieved From: http://news.guelphmercury.com/Sports/article/595504

GUELPH — The Lourdes Crusaders are hoping to make some noise in the District 10 high school senior boys’ basketball playoffs.

“Hopefully, we could surprise some people in the playoffs,” Lourdes coach Mark Tomizzo said.

The Crusaders reached the .500 level (7-7) Tuesday at Lourdes when they completed their regular season with a 73-57 victory over the winless Orangeville Bears.

“I don’t know if we were real motivated to play the last game of the season,” Lourdes coach Mark Tonizzo said. “These guys played us real close when we went up to Orangeville so I was trying to get them up for the game.”

That leaves Lourdes tied for fourth with the Centre Wellington Falcons. The Guelph CVI Green Gaels (6-7) complete their season today against the unbeaten Centennial Spartans (13-0) in the only regular-season game left to be played. The St. James Lions and Ross Royals tied for second at 10-4 while the Bishop Macdonell Celtics are seventh at 2-12.

The playoffs start next Tuesday with the quarter-finals.

The Crusaders have played most teams close. Only Ross (65.5) and Centennial (63.4) have averaged more points per game than the 62.1 averaged by Lourdes. However, the Crusaders have also yielded an average 60.5 points per game, second highest to the 63.2 given up by Orangeville.

“We’ve played everyone in the league pretty competitively,” Tonizzo said. “We lost to Centennial by one, we split with Ross – won one and lost one. St. James beat us twice, but they were both close games. We’ve been competitive. We’re starting to build.”

The Crusaders also got a bit of a boost on the weekend when they finished second at a tournament in Waterloo, losing to Stratford St. Mike’s in the final.

“It was a good chance for us to get our legs back after the exams,” Tonizzo said. “We don’t like the long breaks. We haven’t played well with the breaks.”

Tuesday, the Crusaders and Bears were close for the first half until Lourdes pulled away for the win. The Crusaders held quarter leads of 17-14, 35-33 and 57-50.

With Mike Finoro sitting on the Lourdes bench for a lot of the first half after picking up three fouls early in the game, the Crusaders got into a bit of a run-and-gun with the Bears. That was a style Orangeville was willing to play.

However, Finoro came back into the game in the second half and the hosts slowed it down a bit as they took control.

“They kind of got to me early, I had to sit on the bench early,” Finoro said. “I came back and I just had to be calm and play through it. Shots were falling in the second half and we got the win which is good going into the playoffs.”

Finoro finished the game with 24 points while Sharieff Peru had 13 and Lucas Morrison and Mike Vielma added 11 apiece.

Taylor Ellis had a game-high 25 points for Orangeville while Mitchell Jennings netted eight.