Phoenix only falls short on court
Gold isn’t the only thing that glitters in senior boys high school basketball or in life for that matter.
St. Francis returned home from the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) double A championships in Pembroke with a silver medal after missing the last shot in 54-52 loss to London’s Mother Theresa.
While it was gold or bust for the Phoenix, most of them are back from a team that lost in the quarter-finals at provincials in 2017, head coach Jon Marcheterre won’t let the loss mar an otherwise successful season.
“I’m not upset at the result at all, I just feel bad for the guys,” he said. “I know how hard they fought for it and worked all year long.
“You generally want to say they’re gold-medal guys, but at the end of the day we have to look at the season as a whole as really positive. We can’t get down on ourselves for coming up one shot short.”
With 13 trips to OFSAA in the past 15 years, including a gold medal in 2015, St. Francis ranks among the perennial powerhouses in the province.
Talented, coachable players have been, and are, the key component to this sustained system, but so is a program that stresses the importance of “the process” starting at the junior level.
“That’s 13 individual hardwork seasons, and every single day that we put in to getting there,” he said. “It takes a lot of hard work to get there, and it’s not even guaranteed at that, because one game somewhere, at zone or at SOSSA (Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association) and you don’t make it.”
Marcheterre doesn’t define success as a top-three finish at provincials.
“You can still have a very successful season without getting there, so we try not to overdo the expectations of going to OFSAA and winning gold.”
Marcheterre, who admits he’s a “pretty superstitious guy to begin with,” tamps down expectations by shifting the focus away from the goal of advancing to the provincial championships.
“I just don’t talk about OFSAA all year long,” he said. “I don’t, I refuse to.
“We set smaller goals in between and try to preoccupy with the challenges that that are required to get there.”
Those challenges, from the first day at practice to the final play of the last game, is what the process is all about.
“Everything we do is about the process, whether it’s within a single drill or a game or play,” the first-year head coach said. “The process was great this year, we did a lot of good things along the way.”
For St. Francis players, an important part of the process is the life lessons.
“By teaching the process and focusing on the day in and day out, focusing on the work ethic things, the stuff that’s going to translate a lot longer in life for those guys than a gold medal sitting in a shoebox.
“It’s something to be proud of, but the life lessons, the things that we focus on – being a good teammate, being a good classmate, being a good student, standing up shaking a guy’s hand looking him in the eye – those are the things that are more valuable in the long run.”
St. Francis went 7-0 and outscored opponents 491-257 in league play before going on to defeat Lakeshore Catholic and St. Michael in the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association playoffs. The Phoenix beat Thorold in the Zone 4 double A championship Zone 3 champion Welland Centennial in the SOSSA semifinals.
At OFSAA, they defeated Scarborough Francis Liberman 72-63, Cambridge Glenview Park 55-43, Burlington Corpus Christi 71-60 and advanced to the final with a 66-54 victory over Belleville St. Theresa’s.