(At Cameron Heights CI, 8:00pm)Regular Season: Grand River 65, Cameron Heights 61
Fun Fact: Despite some success at the junior level (including several WCSSAA championships and a CWOSSA title to their credit), the school, which was founded in 1966, has never won a WCSSAA Senior Championship title.
Last Year of WCSSAA Senior Title: CHCI - 2011; GRCI - None.
Last Year of CWOSSA Senior Title: CHCI - 2011; GRCI - None.
How They Got Here
The #1 seeded Golden Gaels cruised through their two playoff games, defeating #8 Glenview Park 60-41 in the quarterfinals before handling #5 Waterloo Collegiate 52-37 on Saturday evening.
Meanwhile, the Grand River Renegades had their work cut out for them against rival (#6 seeded) Eastwood Collegiate before posting a 65-58 win. They took a 16-point second half lead against SJAM before seeing that trimmed to 5 points, then extending to a 63-53 win over #2 seeded SJAM in the semis.
Projected Starters
Cameron Heights: Nik Farkic (G), Afraz Khan (G), Sasha Simic (G/F), Jackie Do (F), Jason Thompson (F).
Grand River: Chuder Teny (G), Murtada Khamis (G), Miro Iliev (G), Petar Petkovic (F), David Bajic (F).
Key Players
Although Sasha Simic is their top scoring option, the Gaels are certainly more of a "score by committee" team than the Renegades. Simic provides the Gaels with a nice inside-out game, and has good size and length from the wing position.
PG Nikola Farkic has tremendous court vision, and had a couple of most impressive assists on Saturday evening. One of those that benefits from Farkic's court-sense is Jason Thompson, who is a good finisher inside (and equally adept at creating his own opportunities from offensive rebounds).
Afraz Khan is a three-point specialist who can get hot in a hurry from the perimeter; he's had games where he's knocked home a bunch of threes in quick succession, and must always be accounted for on the perimeter.
Meanwhile, Grand River's Chuder Teny has asserted himself as arguably the best pure scorer in the CWOSSA region. His shot must be respected (even a few feet off the line), and he can create opportunities for himself in the lane.
Murtada Khamis has always been one of the better guards in the region at getting to the rim, while David Bajic is another three-point threat for Grand if defenders collapse on the penetrators.
Petar Petkovic isn't the offensive threat that others are, but is a tremendous defender and his defensive performance today will also be key to the Rens' success.
X Factors
For Grand River, I'll give the nod to Ahamed Ali and Patrik Odouk. Ali started for Miro Iliev (injury) on Saturday, while Odouk came off the bench and hit a couple of timely threes. Solid production from those two again today will be key for Grand River.
For Cameron Heights, I'll tab Jackie Do and Gord Erkic as the "X Factors" for the Gaels. Neither will need to have huge offensive scoring games, but efficiency in other areas of the game (rebounding, distributing) is a must.
The Game
Not much to say about this one that hasn't been discussed at length already --- bottom line, it should be a good one. Add in the fact that Grand River is gunning for their first-ever WCSSAA title, and you already have a pretty good script to the story.
Former Grand River Renegade Imad Qahwash, who now plays pro basketball in Europe, added his 2 cents on Twitter yesterday about the length of time GRCI has gone without a title:
Congratulations and good luck to my former HS (Grand River C.I) going to the City championship game. Both Jr and Seniors. #BreakTheCurse
— Imad Qahwash (@iqahwash20) February 18, 2014
Meanwhile, one match-up to certainly keep an eye on is Sasha Simic going up against Grand River's top defender, Petar Petkovic.
"Petar always defends the opponent's biggest scoring threat when it is not a point or shooting guard," said Grand River Head Coach Tolly Henderson, "he has defended (some of the better forwards in the WCSSAA league) - Savo Krajisnik (BCI), TJ Lall (Galt) and Simic - and has held them all well below their scoring averages.....he is very important to what we do."
In fact, one of Grand River's notable losses (to JF Ross in the SBCSS tournament) was when Petkovic wasn't available to suit up that weekend.
Prediction
.....who doesn't love curses to be broken?
Grand River 62, Cameron Heights 59
