CWOSSA Qualifying: Eagles Get All They Can Handle From Royals

In a "one and done" scenario, anything can happen.

That lesson was nearly learned the hard way by the St. Mary's Eagles, who travelled to Guelph yesterday and played the JF Ross Royals on their home floor in the "AAAA" Senior CWOSSA qualifier.

It was the Royals making the most of their home court advantage and crowd support, as they took a 1-point lead into halftime before extending to a 5-point lead in the third quarter.

Cue the Tesloth Simon show.

Simon drilled back-to-back three-balls to help the Eagles re-take a 1-point lead after three.  In the fourth, the Eagles couldn't break away from the Royals and led by a single-point (71-70) with under two minutes to go.

With St. Mary's season (and his career) on the line, Simon knocked in a HUGE three-pointer with 1:30 to go to push the Eagle lead to 4.  After some fouling down the stretch, the Eagles were able to escape with an 82-72 victory.

As CTV reporter Darren Stevenson mentioned on Twitter, the final score certainly wasn't indicative of how close this one was.

With the win, St. Mary's advances to Friday & Saturday's "AAAA" tournament in Brantford.  Their first game is Friday at 1:30pm against Cameron Heights (at Brantford Assumption).

Junior
Things went better for the Junior St. Mary's Eagles in their CWOSSA qualifier, as they handled the Centennial Spartans by a 71-49 final.

The Junior Eagles will play Eastwood in their first "AAAA" CWOSSA game (at Assumption), 10:30am on Friday.

Senior AAA
No troubles for the North Park Trojans, who advanced to "AAA" CWOSSA over Holy Trinity in both Junior & Senior games last night.

The senior game went down as a 61-26 final, with Brandon Webster netting 14 and Brandon McIvor 10 for the Trojans; Matt Baxter had 10 to pace the Titans.

"AAA" CWOSSA goes this Saturday & Monday in Guelph.