Harley’s motor sparks Bulldogs
Basketball is not the No. 1 sport of Sir Winston Churchill’s Jack Harley.
In fact, it isn’t even the second or third sport for the Grade 12 student, but that mattered not Tuesday night in the consolation quarter-finals of the 57th Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament. The 6-foot-1 guard scored a team-high 12 points to lead the Bulldogs to 47-32 victory over the Laura Secord Patriots
“He’s not an experienced guy, but he is a real hustle guy and he just played great today,” Churchill head coach Gregg Loucks said.
Loucks likes a lot of things about his Jack of all trades.
“He’s in Grade 12 so he has a bit of maturity, he’s a real grinder and he likes to play defence and work hard; all the things you want.”
The 17-year-old plays hockey, football, lacrosse and pretty much every other sport outside of school, except basketball.
“I played two years in high school and I wanted to come out for my senior year,” he said.
Harley takes a lot of pride in his hustle and hard work.
“I love playing defence and getting steals,” he said. “But I also like scoring as many times as I can.”
Scoring was an issue with Laura Secord Tuesday. No one could fault the Patriots’ effort, but they couldn’t buy a shot.
“The nice thing is that they are good kids and they play with intensity, which is what you want,” Secord coach Derek Boal said. “They played with a lot more intensity than their years and they played man to man defence.
“We don’t stand in a zone and pick our nose.”
Tuesday’s game was a physical affair.
“There hasn’t been good blood between us and Sir Winston and it showed,” Boal said.
The Patriots were also hurt by playing with a short bench. Three players missed the game because of injuries.
“It was a good effort,” he said.
The Patriots hung with the Bulldogs for awhile before Churchill eventually took charge of the game in the fourth quarter
“I have a bit of a young team so I platooned them and we really struggled for the first three quarters,” Loucks said. “In the last quarter, we decided we want to win the game just so we could get that third game and we went with some guys with a little more experience.
“It helped and we pulled away a little bit.”
STATS PACK
Bulldogs 47 Patriots 32
Kully’s/No Limit Performance Players of the Game: Churchill’s Jack Harley with 12 points and Secord’s Ayden Ross with six points.
For the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs: Harley 12; Oreoluwa Fowler 9; Blake Gowling 7; Connor Johnston 6; Brendan Barker 4; Noah Garnice 3; Nate Butler 2; Nick Beaudoin 2; Hawkin Paleczny 2.
For the Laura Secord Patriots: Josh Ramnarain 8; Ross 6; K. Craig 6; Lucas Davidson 3; Sam Nkomo 3; David Armstrong 3; Keifer Sonnenberg 2; Gage Muon 1.
FLYERS 59 GATORS 53
Led by 19 points from Luke Reinerts Tuesday, the Eden Flyers advanced to the Standard consolation semifinals with a 59-53 victory over the Lakeshore Catholic Gators.
Also scoring for the Flyers were Peter Pilling (10), Ashton Nieuwets (9), Charlie Edgar (7), Trent Thorpe (5), Austin Belanger (5) and Carter McMaster (4).
Scoring for the Gators were Sam Beifuss (13), Aiden Plante (11), Nick Qua (10) Thomas Cryer (9), Ben Shoalts (5), Andrew Scott (4) and Quinn (2).
