Axe vs. Axe
Boys’ final of Aidan K. Harrington Memorial tournament featured an all-Three Oaks matchup
One thing was certain before tip-off of the boys’ championship game in the third annual Aidan K. Harrington Memorial basketball tournament on Saturday afternoon.
One thing was certain before tip-off of the boys’ championship game in the third annual Aidan K. Harrington Memorial basketball tournament on Saturday afternoon.
The winning team would be from Three Oaks Senior High School in Summerside. The Team Two and Team Three Axemen met in what turned out to be an entertaining final at the Kensington Intermediate-Senior High School, hosts of the three-day tournament. Harrington was a former basketball star and athlete of the year at KISH, who died suddenly in November 2016.
Just when it looked like Team Two was going to post a lopsided victory, Team Three cut a 23-point deficit early in the third quarter to within six points with 7:19 remaining in the final 10-minute period. The final score was Team Two 78, Team Three 68.
“It was intense,” said Team Two coach John Brennan. “The other team plays hard, and they play all their players. For us, we fell asleep at the start of the fourth quarter. It was a good win.”
Team Three coach John Turner said he is proud of his players for battling to the end.
“We are the third team at TOSH, so to stay within 10 points of them we are pretty pleased with that,” said Turner. “We could have rolled over and died when we were down 23 points.” Grade 12 shooting guard and player-of-the-game Matt Enman scored 20 points to lead Team Two.
“The shots were dropping,” added Enman.
Tyler MacDonald (14), Connor
Lilly (14) and Alex Campbell (12) were Team Two’s other top point-getters.
“We came out strong and started slacking a bit, but we picked it up in the fourth quarter to finish off the game,” said MacDonald, the tournament most valuable player.
20-point effort
Brandon Hastings led Team Three with 20 points while Kolby Waugh had 12 and Brandon Gillis contributed eight. MacDonald and Enman both acknowledged it was fun to a play a team from their own school. Team Two also defeated Team
Three 75-64 in the round robin.
“We all had fun out there,” said MacDonald, who plays point guard. “There were good interactions with guys, and we are all friends, too. I like playing against them.”
Enman added: “It was a good
experience. I’ve grown up with all the boys . . . You don’t get to do it often, so it was definitely a fun time.”
Brennan agreed that one key to Team Two’s offence was quick, crisp passing.
“From the start of the season we wanted to push the ball forward and hit guys in transition,” said Brennan. “We managed to do that, and got a lot of easy layups.”
Brennan is hoping Team Two can build off its success at the KISH tournament.
“It is nice to get some confidence going forward and do some things well,” continued Brennan.
“We got everyone on (the floor) during the course of the tournament, and there were games we could play our bench a lot, so that was nice.”