Lions win fourth consecutive basketball title
Adam Scott Lions won their fourth consecutive Kawartha high school senior boys basketball title but none was as tough as Thursday.
The Lions successfully defended the last possession of the game by the Thomas A. Stewart Griffins to eke out a 48-47 win at Adam Scott Collegiate.
In the junior final, the Crestwood Mustangs avenged two regular season losses by knocking off the St. Peter Saints 50-45.
“That was by far the toughest of them,” said Lions coach Steve Deline, whose team will host the COSSA AA championships next Friday (Feb. 23). “It was gritty, battle, compete basketball for 32 minutes.”
Some coaches in some sports don’t consider the Kawartha final important since both teams advance to COSSA. Not Deline or TASSS coach Craig Muir.
“I tell my guys and I’m sure Craig would tell his the same it’s really about pride. They’re across the river and we compete in a lot of things throughout the year. These kids know each other so well and they’re friends off the court but that hat switches when the game starts.”
The Lions led most of the game by four to six point until Kal Sager hit a three with 15 seconds left in the third quarter to tie it 36-36. The fourth quarter was a seesaw battle with Sager giving the Griffins their only lead with 5:30 left at 40-38.
The Lions’ Luka Khorbaladze hit a three with 3:30 left to make it 47-44 and sunk one of two foul shots to make it 48-44. Ryan Simmons nailed a three to draw TAS within one with 38 seconds left. Sager led TASSS with 14 points while Khorbaladze led Scott with 11 and Ethan Brannen had nine.
“It’s not something we need to have but it’s definitely a pride thing,” Khorbaladze said, “that we get to keep this culture going for the juniors coming up to look up to us.”
“We had opportunities down the stretch,” Muir said. “We designed plays and executed we just bobbled the ball once and lost control of it once and had a little missed rebound. There was a play here or there where we could have had a foul call but it didn’t go our way. I’m pleased with the way our guys played. (Adam Scott) is a good team with a lot of veteran guys. We have a lot of Grade 11’s logging major minutes.”
In the junior final, Owen Petersen led the Stangs with 23 points while Mitch Madill had 17 for the Saints.
“The boys have been working hard all year and never gave up,” said Mustangs coach Tyler Chambers. “We have the right mix of ballers and gamers and they really brought it today. It’s tough taking on a school with twice as many rep players and they just laid it all out there.”
Chambers said they had to battle to get past a tough zone defence.
“We had some clutch shots and kept picking away down low and kept them moving on D,” he said.
Saints coach Tom Fletcher said they took notice when Crestwood beat a tough Adam Scott team in Tuesday’s AA final.
“We knew it was going to be tough coming in,” Fletcher said. “They’re a good team. We may have beat them in the regular season but none of the games we beat them I’d say were easy.”
The Saints couldn’t get those clutch shots.
“Our shooting was off this game,” Fletcher said. “I have some fantastic shooters on my team I can usually count on for a lot of easy threes. We just came out flat today.”
COSSA AAA will be in Belleville on Feb. 23.
Flames edge Falcons in hockey
The Campbellford District Flames beat the Fenelon Falls Falcons 5-4 in Kawartha high school boys hockey action on Thursday.
Zack Nicholson scored a hat trick for the Flames while Jason Newman and Elijah Brahaney also scored. Scoring for Fenelon were Owen Gowanlock, Dryden Desjardins, Brett Metherel and Doug Ford.