Article By: Rob MasseyGUELPH — The two teams that met last week to decide first place in the District 10 high school senior boys' basketball league, will meet again Friday night for the D10 title.
The Ross Royals and Bishop Macdonell Celtics, the first- and second-place finishers in the league, advanced to the championship match at the University of Guelph's Mitchell Athletics Centre to decide the championship.
Ross advanced with a come-from-behind 48-41 victory over the St. James Lions in one of Wednesday's semifinal. In the other, Bishop Mac jumped ahead early and never looked back as the Celtics won 68-59 over the Lourdes Crusaders.
At Ross, the visiting Lions were deadly from beyond the arc in the first quarter as they sank six three-pointers on their way to a 20-13 lead. St. James sank two three-pointers the rest of the way, but remained ahead 25-22 at halftime and 35-30 at the end of the third quarter.
"That was a close one," Ross forward Ryan Stulp said. "We've only beaten them once all year so we knew it would be tough."
The Royals talked over things at halftime and came out determined to reach the D10 final.
"We just needed to get the ball down low and keep doing stuff that was working," Stulp said. "We knew we could pull out the win. We stuck to that and it worked."
Of course the Royals had to pay a little more attention to St. James's long-range shooters.
"We just contested their shots more and it seemed to work out," Stulp said. "We tried to make them go to the hoop more and then we were getting blocks, so it worked out for us."
Stulp led the Royals with 17 points while Tommy Yanchus had 16, Kristian Vande Kemp six, Andrew Folkerson five and Khalil Smith four.
Mitch Marquis and Joey Hasson had 14 points apiece while Quinn Feeney had six, Ervin Tapnio three and Ryan Morales and Zack McClenaghan two apiece.
It was a different scenario at Bishop Mac as the host Celtics grabbed a comfortable lead in the second quarter, then withstood a late charge by the Crusaders. Bishop Mac had quarter leads of 12-9, 34-20 and 47-37.
The Crusaders won both regular-season meetings with the Celtics as they took the games 58-57 and 71-68.
"We had two (earlier) matchups with them and one was a buzzer beater and the other went into double overtime," Bishop Mac's Adam MacEachern said. "We were looking to come out strong, we did and it went in our favour."
"The last couple of times, Craig Valeriote, incredible player," Bishop Mac coach Trevor Smith said. "We just tried to get a bigger body on him and tried to be more physical. We tried to make it as tough on him as possible."
Valeriote had a total of 34 points in the previous two meetings and managed 16 Wednesday.
"We just tried to get some physical guys on their main players and it worked out," Smith said.
Jesse Kendall led Bishop Mac with 29 points while Owen Brombal had 14, Adam MacEachern 12, Lukas Wood nine and Chris Poloniato and Evan Hosker two each.
Kevin Roche led Lourdes with 17 points while David Khayipangi netted 11. Andrew Chapman chipped in with nine and Alex Hudecki added six.
"We were preparing for them throughout the week," MacEachern said. "We knew what they were going to bring so we just came out and did what we had to do and everything worked out."
The D10 senior final is to go Friday at 8 p.m.
D10 Jr. Boys Basketball
St. James Lions and Ross Royals are to meet in the junior final Friday at 6 p.m. at the Mitchell Athletics Centre after both scored semifinal wins Wednesday.
St. James 64 Centennial 49
Keegan Feeney hit for 20 points for St. James while Alex Durigon added 13 and Nick Marquis chipped in with 11. Chris Fraresso connected for 13 for Centennial while Tommy Nield had nine.
Ross 50 Lourdes 42
Nate Berry's 13 points sparked Ross while Julien Renzetti netted 10. Sean Gade had 20 for Lourdes while James Gerstenkorn netted eight.
Retrieved From: http://www.guelphmercury.com/sports-story/4365262-ross-royals-bishop-mac-to-meet-for-d10-hoops-title/
