Ontario claims CAF national championship CFB Trenton takes 70-59 win over Atlantic’s CFB Halifax in gold medal game
Three days of utter dogfight basketball culminated in close and hard-fought championship game during the Canadian Armed Forces national championships at 15 Wing last week. In the end, Team Ontario’s CFB Trenton took a 70-59 victory over Team Atlantic’s CFB Halifax to claim the gold medal – but, as it had been the rest of the tournament, it was anything but easy. “We had a great team this year, we were fortunate to be able to pick up two really great players for the tournament and we all just jelled,” said Ontario’s Lt. Col. Todd Murphy, who moonlights as the commanding officer of the 8 Wing/CFB Trenton Air Maintenance Squadron. “We played together a lot last year with almost the exact same team. It was just a really great team atmosphere and team experience.” Ontario took a 16-10 lead out of the first quarter but found their lead whittled down to only two points 32-30 at half. As the score would indicate, Halifax wouldn’t go away without a fight – and sure enough, they managed to tie the game late in the third quarter. That would be as close as Atlantic would get, though, as an 8-2 run to close the third put Trenton ahead 51-45. The fourth quarter was more of the same, and while Halifax pulled within 10 points a handful of time in the final frame, Ontario’s lead was never threatened. “We know these guys, we’ve played against them a few times over the last few years and they’re a fantastic team,” Murphy said. “We knew that they were going to make a comeback. We just had to try and maintain our composure, weather the storm and then make sure the fourth quarter was ours.” Ontario’s Capt. Timothy Boyle and Maj. Bradley Krajcik led all scorers with 18 points, while Avr. T’Jani Rutty added 13. S. Lt. Greygory Wagner-Conserve and Lt. Cody Brown had 15 points each for Atlantic, L.S. Christopher West had 11. The gold medal final was part-and-parcel of a slew of close games all through the event – most were decided by fewer than eight to 10 points, and the round robin saw three teams tied with 2-1 records. The West’s CFB Edmonton actually took top spot in the preliminary round after point differential, but lost 78-55 in the semifinal to Atlantic. Quebec’s CFB Valcartier went 0-3 in the round robin, never losing a game by more than six points. “All four of these teams could have won this tournament given the right set of circumstances,” Murphy said. “We were fortunate it played out in our favour, but everyone who competed here played hard, worked hard. It was a really competitive, well-played tournament.” All in all, the event also served it’s main purpose of giving the players a positive diversion from their day-to-day military activities. “It’s just a great opportunity for sportsmanship among military people, a chance to come and enjoy the time together, and physical fitness as well. There’s a lot of benefits to something like this... we’re kind of professional basketball players for a couple days,” Murphy said with a laugh. “It’s a good opportunity for people from diverse backgrounds to come together militarily, we end up playing a lot of these same teams every year, as luck would have it, so it’s a great way to create bonds and meet great people and have some good competition.”