By: Rob Mercury, Guelph Mercury StaffGUELPH — There’s nothing like playing in your hometown.
Connor Wood of Guelph was the high scorer in his first basketball game in the city in two years as he led the Hamilton-based Regional Elite Development Academy team to a 77-69 victory over Uruguay’s touring national under-17 team.
Wood struck for 27 points in the game, but a key basket in the final two minutes secured the victory.
The teams were tied 17-17 at the end of the first quarter and Uruguay led 40-34 at the half before REDA rallied in the third quarter to carry a 55-51 lead into the final quarter.
“It’s been a while, so it feels pretty good to just get back here and play,” Wood said.
Wood has been with the REDA team for two years and was joined this year by younger brother Mitchell Wood. Mitchell, the youngest player on the team, had a point in limited action. It was his first game in Guelph since the end of last year’s high school season.
“I enjoyed it,” Mitchell said of his return to game play in the city. “I had a lot of my friends come out.”
Connor’s game pretty much mirrored the play of the REDA team. After a slow start, he picked it up in the second half as he collected 18 of his points after the break.
“My game started off pretty slow,” Connor said. “I really just let my teammates do most of it for the first part because they were getting a lot of the stuff done.”
While he did put up a few three-point shots, Connor was looking to work inside as much as he could.
“I’m looking to drive more now,” he said. “I’m trying to get variety into the game.”
Mitchell wasn’t pleased with his outing, feeling he could have done a little better.
“I don’t think I played that good,” he said. “I didn’t get a lot of minutes, but that’s OK.”
As for the REDA team, coach and founder Terry Upshaw, who coached high school basketball at Guelph CVI in the 1990s, was happy with the win.
“That was a real good game for us,” Upshaw said. “We were a little undermanned.”
The REDA squad was missing three starters as one was in the Dominican Republic and two others were at a showcase tournament.
“For our young guys and for the guys who don’t play major minutes, they did really well,” Upshaw said. “We could do things a lot better. We had 10 to 12 unforced turnovers, we need to take care of the ball a bit better. But you’ve got to like the W. My favourite line is that I’ll take an ugly W over a pretty L any day of the week.”
REDA’s had a few Ws lately as it was their eighth consecutive win since Christmas.
For the Uruguayan squad, the game was the first of their 10-game tour. They’ll also play games in Toronto this week before heading to Sault Ste. Marie for a tournament there next weekend. REDA will be there, too.
In the preliminary game, the Guelph CYO under-13 squad defeated REDA’s junior team 56-47.
Chris Poloniato had 14 points for CYO while Evan Hosker had 12 and Chris Jin had 10.
CYO held quarter leads of 12-4, 22-18 and 41-31.
Retrieved From February 5th Guelph Mercury: http://news.guelphmercury.com/article/758068
No comments:
Post a Comment