Article By: Rob Massey
GUELPH – Both Guelph District 10 boys'
basketball champions have advanced to the semifinals at the CWOSSA high
school AAA boys' basketball championship tournament.
Both the St. James Lions in senior and
Guelph CVI Green Gaels in junior won twice Saturday to gain the top
seeding in their three-team pools for Monday's semifinals at St. James.
"The goal was to advance to Monday and
preferably to advance with two wins," St. James coach Bob Sharpe said.
"We accomplished that."
"Coming into the day, we wanted to get two
wins," St. James guard Mitch Marquis said. "We didn't want to get just
one, we wanted to show that we could beat every team here, hopefully, if
we play well. We've got to start with the defence and the offence will
come after. Hopefully we can continue to do that on Monday."
"We were a little surprised, actually," GCVI
coach Rich Tremain said. "We came in just hoping to get one win out of
the two and make it to Monday, so getting the two wins is a bonus. I
don't think that means we have a weaker opponent coming on Monday
because I think everybody in the other pool is pretty strong."
The Lions dropped the Preston Panthers 72-26 and the Kitchener-Waterloo CI Raiders 57-31.
"They were two quite different games,"
Sharpe said. "The first game we actually didn't play all that well in
the first half, but the second half we played much better. We didn't
shoot the ball very well, but we just had better shot opportunities. The
second game against KCI, that's the third time we've played them this
year and all three games have been basically the same. They've got some
shooters, but I thought we did a really good job on defence taking away
their shooters and dealing with the screen-and-roll stuff. We're pretty
happy at this point and looking forward to Monday's semifinal."
Joey Hasson struck for 25 points (18 in the
first quarter) in the win over Preston while Alex Durigon had 15 and
Marquis netted nine. Jonny Ashworth had 11 for Preston.
Marquis collected 11 in the win over KCI
while Durigon, Alex MacKeigan and Erwin Tapnio had eight each. David
Ben-Lemotey had 12 for KCI.
"It starts with defence," Marquis said of
the success for the Lions this season. "Mr. Sharpe always talks about
defence and that's where our game has to come from. The offence will
come after, once we get the defence going."
The Lions rely on team play and don't have a go-to player. All chip in and play their roles.
"If someone has a hot hand, we try to look
for him," Marquis said. "But everyone can hot in any game and our
scoring is from everyone on the team."
And it's from everywhere in the offensive
zone. Saturday, they hit a total of seven three-point shots and also
sank 26 foul shots.
"We do like the three-ball a lot, but we're
trying to focus more on getting the ball inside a little bit more,"
Marquis said. "We're trying to work our way and not always rely on the
three-point shot."
The Gaels defeated the Galt Ghosts 65-48 and Waterloo's Bluevale Knights 66-57.
"The boys are confident going into Monday,"
Tremain said. "They played very well today. This morning we were a
little stale and sloppy, but they cleaned that up."
The Gaels trailed Galt by a point after the
third quarter, but outscored the Ghosts 28-10 in the fourth quarter.
Kyle Kush and Lincoln Rosebush had 20 points
apiece for the Gaels in the win over the Ghosts while Rip Singh added
16. Muhammad Iralan had 17 for Galt while Abbas Khan added 14.
Singh had 19 points against Bluevale while
Kush had 17, Rosebush 14 and Jerrol Smiles 10. Michael Allen led
Bluevale with 21 and Greg Smith contributed 11.
GCVI continued with the style of play that
gained the Gaels their D10 success. They basically keep the ball moving
and keep the pace high throughout the game and it usually pays off in
the third or fourth quarters.
"That's been our strategy, to really push
the ball down the floor and ideally wear teams down," Tremain said.
"We've been telling the boys that games will be close for the first half
and if we do wear them down, in the third and fourth quarter we're able
to pull away and it's worked."
However, that strategy becomes tougher the
further along in the season the Gaels get and Monday will be the end of
their season as there are no OFSAA provincial high school championships
at the junior level.
"The teams on the other side of this pool
are very, very strong," Tremain said. "We're going to go in and compete
and whatever happens, it's been an amazing season for these boys."
KCI and Bluevale gained Pool A's other
semifinal berths. KCI defeated Preston 62-41 in senior and Bluevale
dropped Galt 51-33 in junior.
Moving on from Pool B play at Lourdes were
the Galt Ghosts and Brantford North Park Trojans in senior and St. David
Celtics of Waterloo and St. John's Green Eagles of Brantford in junior.
The Galt seniors defeated St. David 63-48
and North Park 61-37 while North Park downed St. David 61-50.
In junior, St. David edged KCI 44-41 and
defeated St. John's 58-49 while St. John's nipped KCI 55-52.
Monday's semifinals pit the first-place team
in one pool against the second-place team in the other pool. All of
Monday's games are to be played at St. James.
The junior semifinals feature GCVI against
St. John's at 9 a.m. and Bluevale against St. David at 10:30 a.m.
The senior semifinals pit St. James against North Park at noon and KCI against Galt at 1:30 p.m.
The Lions have not played North Park this season.
"I know they ended up second in the
Brantford league," Sharpe said. "We've had some history with North Park.
It'll be a tough ball game, but we have home-court advantage and
hopefully we'll have some people here to cheer us on. We're looking
forward to a very tough semifinal."
The Lions lost to North Park at the CWOSSA
AAA tournament four years ago and also two years ago at the unofficial
CWOSSA championship when there was the labour dispute in the public
school board.
"I don't think much about payback because
every game is different and every season is different," Sharpe said.
The junior final is slated to go at 5:30 p.m. and the senior final is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
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