Guelph Mercury: St. James, Bishop Mac To Meet in Hoops Final

Article By:  Rob Massey

GUELPH — The Bishop Macdonell Celtics will be aiming for their third consecutive District 10 high school senior boys' basketball title Thursday night at the University of Guelph's Mitchell Athletics Centre. 

The St. James Lions will be looking for their first since they finished a four-year run of title wins in 2000. 

Both advanced to the final with semifinal victories in tight matches Tuesday. 

At Bishop Macdonell, the Celtics prevailed 47-40 in an intense game with the Ross Royals. At St. James, the Lions avoided an upset with a 60-58 victory over the Centre Wellington Falcons. 

"As a basketball player, that's what you live for," Bishop Mac's Chris Poloniato said of the close matches. "You train hard and this is what it comes down to. You just want to be in the big game." 

That Bishop Mac and Ross would be close was no shocker. They finished the regular season with identical 11-3 records. Ross was one of the highest-scoring teams in the league while the Celtics employed the league's stingiest defence. 

"These two teams want it bad," Bishop Mac coach Trevor Smith said. "Tommy (Yanchus) and Andrew (Folkerson of Ross), it's tough to match their intensity. I think we did a good job trying, but it's going to be intense with those two. They're warriors." 

The Celtics and Royals split their matches during the regular season, each winning by 15 points at home. The tie was broken thanks to Bishop Mac's defence that allowed 617 points during the regular season while Ross gave up 784. That ultimately gave Bishop Mac the semifinal game at home. 

Jake Chaput led Bishop Mac with 13 points while Chris Poloniato had 12 and Lukas Wood added 11. 

Tommy Yanchus had a game-high 14 points for Ross while Andrew Folkerson collected 13. 

The Celtics led at the end of each quarter as they were up 14-10 at the end of the first quarter, 26-15 at halftime and 37-25 after three quarters. 

While Bishop Mac is headed back to the championship game, this season's team is a bit different than the team that won last year. 

"Last year's team, we had a couple of senior-senior guys, a couple of 12-pluses to take the leadership role," Smith said. "This year, the leadership is coming from Lukas Wood, a Grade 12, and the rest is from Grade 11s. It's good to see that. We're younger, obviously, this year but the young guys are just stepping up for those graduated guys. These boys run their own team. We might coach from the sideline, the boys run the show. They keep everybody in line. They keep everybody intense." 

The other semifinal pitted the St. James Lions, who had marched through the regular season undefeated and added a quarter-final win last week, against the Centre Wellington Falcons who had finished fourth at 7-7. 

Joey Hasson had 19 points for the Lions while Quinn Feeney added 12. 

Josh McEachern hit for 19 points for Centre Wellington while Mackenzie Mathers followed with 12. 

Thursday's final is to start at 8 p.m. 

"It's going to be a tough game," Poloniato said. "All 32 minutes you've got to work hard, play together and play smart. There's no reason we can't come out with the win if we do everything we trained for all year." 

"(The key will be) containing our emotions," Smith said of the final. "We've got to fuel the emotion into intensity and energy and we've got to stay mentally focused."