All good things must come to an end.
Unfortunately for the Our Lady of Lourdes (Guelph) Crusaders, that exit came earlier than they were hoping for on Tuesday evening, with a 72-56 defeat at the hands of the #5 seed, Vaughan Road (Toronto).
A win in that contest would have assured Lourdes of an OFSAA medal; however, the Vipers took advantage of foul trouble to Lourdes' stars, Mike Finoro and Sharieff Peru, and built a 40-21 halftime edge en route to the 16-point win.
Peru finished with 22 in that one, while Finoro added 12.
The story of the day for Lourdes fans, though, was their comeback against #13 seed St. Michael's (Stratford) in their round-of-16 game.
After leading 38-35 through three quarters, the Crusaders went cold during the early stages of the fourth at about the same time that St. Mike's started to heat up.
The result? The Warriors took a 10-point lead with just over 4:00 to go.
Cue the Mike Finoro show.
After a timeout and on the ensuing possession, Finoro drilled a three, cutting the deficit to 7. Lourdes then pressed and forced a turnover, and Finoro hit another three to quickly cut things down to 4.
After a St. Mike's miss, Finoro drove the lane and found Peru for a lay-in that dropped the deficit down to 2 and under 2:00 to play.
Finoro would tie the game at 53-53 on a driving layup with :19 on the clock to force OT. The OT hero was Chris Watson, who netted 8 points in the extra session to help Lourdes earn the 65-60 win.
Finoro would finish with 23 points, while Peru had 22 to lead the Crusaders.
No comments:
Post a Comment