Article By: Brian SmileyBrantford Collegiate Institute may have lost its opening CWOSSA 'AAAA' junior boys basketball game on Friday morning at Assumption College but the team's players earned the praise of their coach.
"I think that's the best team in the tournament," BCI coach Marc Cohoon said following his team's 76-47 loss to Waterloo's Sir John A. Macdonald Highlanders.
"We knew they were going to be good and we were actually pleased after the first quarter with how we competed."
After bowing out of Brant County in the semifinals, the Colts had to play a qualifier game to get into the Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association tournament. BCI won that game, defeating Assumption 54-46.
Unfortunately in the qualifier, the Colts lost one of their key players - Keaton Thornton - with a broken arm. BCI also entered the SJAM game without starters Liam Rose (concussion) and Judah Stewart as well as bench player Logan Evans.
Despite being short staffed, the Colts led 14-13 after one quarter.
"The first quarter was awesome," Cohoon said. "We hoped to slow the game down a little bit because we only had seven or eight guys. As soon as the press came and we played a little fast, we obviously couldn't defend a man with tired bodies so we played our zone and they made shots.
"Trading threes for twos doesn't go that well usually."
In the second quarter, BCI led 19-16 before SJAM went on an 11-0 run that put it out front 37-23 at the half.
The Colts were done in by turnovers and sub-par defensive rebounding but most importantly, the three pointers.
SJAM made 11 shots from beyond the arc in the game, including six from Nino Spasik and four from Maksim Koprivica. Spasik, the game's leading scorer with 35 points, scored 15 of his points in the second quarter.
The Highlanders put the game away with a 10-3 run to open the third quarter.
BCI was led offensively by Adrian Fletcher's 16 points. Adam Bakker and Ben McAlpine added 10 points each while Ben Perrault got six.
Even though his team played short-handed, Cohoon could not have asked for much more from those who took to the court.
"We just said to them in change room, we had more assists today than we've had all year," the coach said. "Team play was awesome today. When we did break the press, it looked great.
"It was a great effort. We can't fault their effort. That's a good team."
The Colts were eliminated from further play with a 59-47 loss to St. Mary's during a game Friday afternoon at ACS.
Despite only playing two CWOSSA games, Cohoon said it will serve his team well down the road to have played at the tournament.
"Experience for a bunch of Grade 9s who are on the floor goes a long way for next year," said Cohoon, whose team consisted of five Grade 10s and six Gr. 9s.
Retrieved From: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2015/02/27/outmanned-bci-juniors-put-up-a-good-fight
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