Article By: Rob Massey
GUELPH — The St. James Lions remained
undefeated in District 10 high school senior boys' basketball play
Tuesday, securing a first-place finish in the process.
The Lions won their 16th consecutive
regular-season game and 13th of this season when they handed the Bishop
Macdonell Celtics a 61-52 setback at Bishop Mac. The loss was the second
of the regular season for the second-place Celtics (11-2).
"That's part of the motivation (clinching
first), but we're just trying to keep a good season going and try to be
consistent," St. James coach Bob Sharpe said. "If we do that, the result
will take care of itself. Today, the result took care of itself."
St. James has not lost in league play since
the Celtics won by seven points at St. James on Jan. 14, 2014.
Bishop Mac led 15-13 at the end of the first
quarter before St. James took a 34-33 lead into the halftime
intermission. The Lions came out for the third quarter determined to
speed up their offence and they scored the first seven points of the
quarter to pull away to a 50-36 advantage by the end of the quarter.
"We did try to move the ball up the floor
quicker, but you can only do that if you have the ball," Sharpe said.
"In other words, you get it off the boards, you get it off turnovers and
you get it with defensive coverage and you go to transition. If you
have to take the ball out of bounds, it's hard to get the ball up the
floor. Particularly in the third quarter, our defence was very strong.
We took away their penetration."
"Mr. Sharpe just wanted us to play better —
defensively, particularly," Quinn Feeney said. He led the Lions with a
game-high 23 points. "Our offence starts with our defence and that's
when we push the ball and make it uptempo. We just talked about that and
came out strong."
However, the Celtics weren't done and, in
the fourth quarter, they cut the gap back to four points with just over
two minutes to go but couldn't get any closer.
"It was good to see us finish out the game
and in the last couple of minutes in particular," Sharpe said. "We got
two or three open layups when they were pressuring and it was good that
we went to the foul line and knocked down foul shots, which has been a
bit of a problem for us this year. Our foul shooting is probably the
weakest part of our game."
A pair of baskets by Feeney who worked himself free on the baseline helped the Lions secure the win.
"They were doubling and it was communication and teammates having good court vision," Feeney said.
The Lions also didn't crack under the pressure of the Bishop Mac comeback.
"We just tried to keep our composure,"
Feeney said. "Mr. Sharpe called a time, which was a smart one, pulled us
in and made us aware that we can't let this one go. We had to close
it."
"We do have a veteran team and we finished
with five very senior players on the floor," Sharpe said.
"That was
really part of my strategy, plus all the guys on the floor can really
shoot foul shots. They had to foul us."
Behind Feeney, Mitch Marquis had 10 points for St. James and Erwin Tapnio netted nine.
"Everything was flowing," Feeney said of his
game. "I try to look for other players first, but if something's open,
I'll take it."
Chris Poloniato had 22 points for Bishop Mac
while Lucas Wood had 15 and Jake Chaput contributed seven.
The Lions are to complete their regular
season Thursday with a home game against the Orangeville Bears in a game
that could be a preview of a quarter-final match next week.
Lourdes 59 Guelph CVI 37
Scoring details were not reported.
Ross 70 Centre Wellington 66
Andrew Folkerson led Ross with 15 points
while Jake Grant had 14 and Harris Cornett netted 12. Nate Scott had a
game-high 19 for Centre Wellington while James Scott had 18 and Ty Uhrig
gathered 14.
D10 Jr. Boys' Basketball
Centennial 70 Orangeville 67
Scoring details were not reported.
Guelph CVI 68 Lourdes 35
Lincoln Rosebush struck for 23 points for
GCVI while Kyle Kush had 15 and Josh Tran collected eight. Teagan Clark
had eight for Lourdes while Mateo Rogue, Geeth Kenneth, David Casupanan
and E.J. Martinez each had five.
Centre Wellington 44 Ross 26
Mitch Rose-Janes led Centre Wellington with
14 points while Cole Newton followed with 11. Brody Beamish and Vishal
Pandya had six apiece for Ross.
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