Article By: Darryl Smart
When coach Greg Pajor walked into the Simcoe
Sabres locker room Friday, Jordan Peever, Ben Adams and the rest of the
senior boys basketball team knew that his speech was different.
“There was just something in his voice,”
Peever said. “He knew we were going to win. He made us believe it.”
And that’s exactly what the Sabres did,
beating the Holy Trinity Titans in a convincing 55-24 fashion to capture
the Norfolk Secondary School Athletic Association senior boys
basketball title.
“It’s hard to put it into words,” Peever said. “It’s a great way to end it all.”
Which possibly may be why the Sabres came
out the way they did, opening with a 12-0 run en route to a 20-8 lead
after one quarter. By halftime, the lead was 33-8.
“We really didn’t think the game would end
up like this,” Adams said. “But we ran the ball. They said in the paper
last week that they were going to run the ball all over us. We kind of
chuckled and ran the ball right back at them.
“It really feels great,” he said as he held
part of the net he cut off in one hand and gold medal in the other. “I
wouldn’t have been able to go out of high school the right way without
this.”
Like Peever, Adams said coach Pajor was the one that set the tone from the beginning.
“You can really feel it today, especially in
the change room when he gave us a pep talk,” Adams said. “It wasn’t
your regular one. He definitely got us to step up.”
They both said that it wasn’t just the
speech, but a new system he implemented, just for the championship game.
“I was actually a little nervous going into
tonight’s game,” Peever said. “Everything that we were doing tonight was
brand new. Pajor threw it at us the other day. He said it’s a gamble
but he thought it’ll work.”
And it did, as a stifling defence-first
mentality all but took away the Titans two biggest offensive threats,
Braden Ongena, and Tevaun Gardner, who scored eight and five points
respectively.
While the defence clicked, so did the
offence, especially in transition. The Sabres did a large majority of
their damage off the fast break, thanks in part to Miles Caley, who was
the recipient of several wide-open looks for his game-high 13 points.
Also scoring for Simcoe was Tyler Kozak
nine, Steve Kozak eight, Peever six, Kyle Dedrick six, Dawson Heron six,
Adams three, Tyler Poss two, and Josh McGarry two.
Brendan Ransome scored four for the Titans,
while Lenny Forrest netted three, with Alex Dalton, and Hunter Forrest
each getting two.
The Sabres will now travel to Owen Sound
Collegiate Vocational School February 26, 27, for the Central Western
Ontario Secondary Schools Association AA championships.
“If we play like this, who knows what we can
do,” Peever said. “We just have to believe like we did tonight.”
The Titans will meet Brantford’s North Park
Collegiate Trojans in a CWOSSA AAA qualifier this week.
The Trojans are
coming off of a loss to the Assumption College Lions in the Brant County
Secondary School Athletic Association championship.
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