Simcoe, Waterford to Play for NSSAA Crown

SCS Owns Second Half
By: Jacob Robinson, Simcoe Reformer

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The Simcoe Sabres and Waterford Wolves were the two hottest teams in the second half of the NSSAA senior boys basketball regular season. Now they'll play for the league championship.

It was steady as she goes for the Wolves in hosting last night's semifinal doubleheader, as the home side did what they do best in beating Holy Trinity 50-23, keeping their perfect season in tact.

As for the Sabres, a team that was once 0-4 on the season and down by as many as 14 in the second quarter last night to second seeded Valley Heights, no one can question their heart or resilience as they battled back like they have all year for a 56-52 win.

Valley Heights owned much of the first half and, thanks to the scoring efforts of point guard Jay Knelsen and forward Johann Jenkins, were up 11 after the first and 24-11 early in the second.

But back-to-back three pointers from James Tran and a spectacular Sam Baskerville layup chipped into the deficit, one that shrunk to just seven at halftime.

"With that (second) three, it set the tone," said Tran. "They started getting down, and once they start getting down, we get up and it boosted our confidence."

"We just started running our offence well, making less bad choices, and our shooting was better."

In the second half, all the shots that were falling for Valley Heights in the first began to catch iron while the Simcoe shooters did nothing but get hotter.

"We came out hard in the first and then, I don't know," said Jenkins, who had eight points.

"They were calling more plays -- its like they evaluated our first half and came back in the second half and worked on us, and obviously it worked."

Simcoe outscored their opponents in the third and fourth quarters to make sure there would be a Cinderella team in the finals.

"It's great, it's a well fought battle and it was tremendous at the end," said Tran.

"We were thinking, 'We can't let them win, we've come this far already, we've got to take it home.'"

Six of Simcoe's eight players hit the scoresheet and were led by Connor Pettersen with 18, Tran with 14 and Baskerville with 13.

Rempel finished with 17 for the Bears.

In the second contest, the Wolves sent most of the decent-sized crowd home happy as they kept the Titans down by at least 10 points for much of the night.

WDHS led by just five as Holy Trinity came out with an inspired start, but the veteran Wolves went on a 15-3 run in the second quarter to build up a 15-point advantage at the break.

Gary Hill-Stone had 16, Mike Couperus scored 13 and point guard Paul Malcolm added 10.

"It was a good effort, I think we could've played better, especially on defence," said Holy Trinity's Thomas Demers. "But we're a young team and it was tough to match up against them. We played hard and that should be good experience for our young guys next year."

SCS and Waterford will face off Thursday in Waterford at 7: 30 p.m.