Article By: Jacob Robinson
The blue teams flirted with danger last night before eventually pulling away for a victory. Now the time for flirting is over and the date has been set: Delhi and Simcoe will do the dance for this year's NSSAA senior boys basketball championship.
The Simcoe Sabres defeated Waterford 51-37 and the Delhi Raiders downed Holy Trinity 47-32 in NSSAA semifinal action Tuesday at Simcoe Composite School. Even though the scoring closed out fairly lopsided, both games were close at key points of the second half as well.
In the opener Tuesday, Delhi led Holy Trinity by a grinding 11-10 score at halftime as neither side could generate much offence. The Titans were still within a point midway through the third quarter when the Raiders suddenly came to life.
Spurred on by a pair of three-pointers courtesy of Donte Richardson and some impressive low post scoring by Justin Lichach, Delhi went on a 12-2 run to close out the period. Lichach finished with 13 points and Richardson put in 11.
"We just stopped playing nervous and started trusting in ourselves again," Richardson said. "We knew we could beat them (Holy Trinity), we know what we can do -- we just had to make it happen."
Delhi's run to the fourth before the Titans called a timeout and calmed things down. Holy Trinity point guard Josh Johnson took some hard-earned trips to the bucket and clawed his team to within eight, but that's as close as they would get. Johnson finished the game with 28 of his team's 32 points.
With the Raiders through to the final, it was now Simcoe's turn. Facing a scrappy Waterford Wolves team that never backs down until the final horn sounds, the Sabres were forced to sweat a bit before they could start looking ahead to Thursday.
"We had a lot of playoff nerves coming in. We wanted this game bad, especially after watching Delhi win. We needed this game," Sabres forward Cody Cunningham said.
As mentioned, it didn't come easy. A last-second field goal to end the first quarter gave Simcoe just a 10-8 lead. They eventually stretched that advantage to six points at halftime (22-16) and 11 points by the end of three (34-23).
Yet there were the Wolves in the fourth quarter, clawing their way back into the contest. Little by little Simcoe's lead began to fade until Waterford trailed by just five points with 2:40 left on the clock.
It was a comeback they could not sustain though, as the Sabres go-to guys, Kevin Allemang and Tommy Tran, went to work at the foul stripe. Tran finished with 19 points and Allemang had 13 as Simcoe made sure this year's NSSAA final would be a rematch of the last one.
"We know what we have to do against Delhi, we have to shut down their big men," Cunningham said. "We have to box out in the paint, shoot well from outside and execute the game plan."
The senior final will go Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
NOT OVER YET
While both the Holy Trinity Titans and Waterford Wolves lost on Tuesday, neither side is putting away their basketball shoes just yet.
Holy Trinity will play a CWOSSA triple-A play-in game against Brantford Collegiate Institute in the coming days, while Waterford will host the CWOSSA single-A tournament next Tuesday. Also joining the Wolves at CWOSSA will be the Port Dover Lakers, who finished fifth in the regular season.
Wolves centre Tyler Meyers said his team will take a vote of confidence from its semifinal performance against Simcoe into the big event next week.
"We played hard tonight, we never let up," he said. "I know we can do it (win CWOSSA), we just have to believe. It's our gym, the home crowd will be behind us -- I can't wait."
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