Article By: Jordan Ercit
Josh Falkenstern was willing to give the shirt off his back for a WCSSAA championship.
But one day, after he wanted to see how his coach would react to the idea, he decided to tear it off his chest instead.
The 18-year-old’s ode to Hulkamania became a symbolic pre-game ritual for the first-place Trojans, who capped off a perfect WCSSAA senior boys’ basketball season Wednesday at Preston High School in Cambridge.
Surrounded by teammates before the tipoff, the 6’4” power forward would tear the shirt — which on Wednesday had the word “redemption time” scribbled across the chest — in half.
“I just wanted to see the look on my coach’s face, but it also gets me pumped and it was just something I wanted to do,” said Falkenstern, a final-year player who helped the Trojans snap a string of WCSSAA quarterfinal exits this season.
“But now I’m running low on T-shirts.”
No wonder.
Falkenstern has been shredding T-shirts since the third game of the season while the Trojans were shredding through the WCSSAA opposition en route to an undefeated season and their first school title since 2008 — a 66-52 win over Waterloo’s Sir John A. MacDonald Highlanders.
Leading the way again was the killer guard combo of Javon Masters and Juwan Miller, who combined for 60 per cent of the Forest Heights offence Wednesday night.
Masters, who rolled his ankle a minute into the game, returned with two minutes left in the first quarter and went on to score a game-high 23 points, including a steal and breakaway dunk in the third that put the Trojans up 45-29 — their largest lead of the game at that point.
Miller had 17 while Ben Reyhani led the Highlanders with 20 point before fouling out with 3:09 left in the fourth quarter.
Needless to say, the ankle felt good.
“I knew I was going to come back in the game,” said Masters, a Grade 12 guard who along with Miller led the Trojans in scoring this season in all but one WCSSAA league game.
“For me, it’s been four long years to finally get to this point so I just took the bull by the horns.”
The Trojans had been on a mission all season, with only two teams coming within 10 points of them in WCSSAA league play.
On of those teams was the Highlanders, who upset the Trojans in the 2010-11 WCSSAA semifinals and ousted Forest Heights in the 2009-10 quarterfinals.
This time, there was little chance of an upset as the Trojans went on a 6-0 run to start the second half and held on to a double-digit lead the rest of the way.
That means they are off to the CWOSSA quad-A championship Friday and Saturday in Guelph, where they will be in the same pool with host J.F. Ross and the District 8-champion St. Mary’s Eagles.
Falkenstern thinks the Trojans are capable of more.
“I don’t even think we’ve peaked yet,” he said. “We’re getting better and better each game, like stepping stones, and it’s my final year, so I’d love to go to OFSAA. CWOSSA this weekend is going to be huge.”
In the junior boys’ final, the Grand River Renegades ran up a 20-point halftime lead for a 59-46 win over the Eastwood Rebels.
Jamal Murray had 16 points for the Renegades.
Ousmane Kromah had 14 for Eastwood.
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