The St. Mary's Eagles overcame an 8-point deficit with just over 3:00 to play as they finished the game on an 11-1 run in a thrilling 38-36 win over the St. Benedict Saints on Friday at the University of Waterloo.It certainly didn't look like St. Mary's would have much of a chance being down 8 in such a low-scoring game, especially given the regularity at which they were turning the ball over and missing shots (1-for-22 from three-point range to that point in the game). However, they certainly "saved the best for (the) last (3:30 of the game)".
It started with a Henoak Abara lay-in that got the Eagles to within 6 and 3:00 to play.
He then converted an "and one" off of a steal to cut things down to 35-32 with 2:48 to go. Quickly, 5 points were erased from the deficit in a matter of seconds.
After the Saints were able to kill some time off the clock, Alex Douglas converted 1-of-2 free throws for a 36-32 SBCSS advantage.
The Saints had the ball back (1:30 to go) when the Eagles forced a steal. A great defensive strip by Zubair Seyed forced St. Mary's to inbound the ball baseline, where they found grade nine forward Minas Abara alone for a three-point attempt, which he made to cut things down to one.
Another SBCSS turnover then led to Adham Eleeda finding Minas Abara inside and, all of a sudden, St. Mary's had a one point lead with under one minute to play.
The Eagles made the mistake on the next defensive possession of leaving Saints' sharpshooter Justin Malnerich open on a three-point attempt --- but were lucky to have him miss. St. Mary's would add one more free-throw while Malnerich missed a tough contested three-pointer with about :10 to go for the final margin.
Henoak Abara led the way for St. Mary's with 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 assists. Adham Eleeda added 9, while Minas Abara had 7. David Nguyen (6), Gordon Lam (2) and Barnaba Neil (2) were also on the St. Mary's scoresheet.
Alex Douglas had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Saints. Justin Malnerich had 11 points off the bench, hile Zubair Seyed (3), Vicken Geokjian (3), Khiem Tran (3), Lucas Cardoso (2) and Jamal Hajo (1) also scored for St. Benedict.
St. Mary's will advance to the "AAAA" junior tournament next weekend in Guelph, while the Saints will play JF Ross on Wednesday in a qualifying game.
Boxscore
SBCSS 12-07-10-07 = 36
SMHS 11-09-07-11 = 38
St. Benedict (36)
Z. Seyed 1-10 FG, 1-1 FT, 1 Reb, 3 Ast - 3 Pts.
A. Douglas 4-10 FG, 4-8 FT, 10 Reb, 0 Ast - 13 Pts.
A. McIntosh 0-0 FG, 0-0 FT, 2 Reb, 2 Ast - 0 Pts.
V. Geokjian 1-3 FG, 1-2 FT, 5 Reb, 0 Ast - 3 Pts.
K. Tran 1-6 FG, 0-0 FT, 0 Reb, 1 Ast - 3 Pts.
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J. Malnerich 3-9 FG, 2-3 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast - 11 Pts.
M. Le 0-0 FG, 0-0 FT, 2 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
L. Cardoso 1-1 FG, 0-0 FT, 3 Reb, 0 Ast - 2 Pts.
A. Abdi 0-1 FG, 0-0 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
S. Arora 0-1 FG, 0-0 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
J. Hajo 0-1 FG, 1-2 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
Field Goals: 11-42 (.262). Free-Throws: 9-16 (.563). Three-Point Goals: 5-13, .385 (J. Malnerich 3-7, A. Douglas 1-1, K. Tran 1-3, Z. Seyed 0-2).
St. Mary's (38)
H. Abara 5-12 FG, 2-2 FT, 8 Reb, 2 Ast - 12 Pts.
D. Nguyen 1-10 FG, 4-7 FT, 5 Reb, 0 Ast - 6 Pts.
A. Eleeda 4-11 FG, 0-0 FT, 10 Reb, 3 Ast - 9 Pts.
G. Lam 1-8 FG, 0-4 FT, 7 Reb, 2 Ast - 2 Pts.
B. Niel 1-6 FG, 0-0 FT, 15 Reb, 0 Ast - 2 Pts.
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M. Abara 3-7 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 Reb, 2 Ast - 7 Pts.
Field Goals: 15-54 (.278). Free-Throws: 6-13 (.461). Three-Point Goals: 2-23, .087: A. Eleeda 1-5, M. Abara 1-5, G. Lam 0-2, H. Abara 0-4, D. Nguyen 0-7.
