Gryphons can’t stop Kleinsmith and Cyclone
E.L. Crossley’s Matthew Kleinsmith was up to his usual tricks Friday night at Notre Dame in the consolation semifinals of 67th Annual Welland Tribune Basketball Tournament.
The Grade 12 guard chalked up a game-high 33 points to lead his team to a berth in the consolation finals with a 69-55 triumph over the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons. He is averaging 26 points through three games at the tourney.
The 17-year-old knows he needs to score for his team but he also focuses on other things.
“I like to move the ball too because I was raised on moving the ball and ball movement,” he said. “I also like to be a leader out there and teach. We have a lot of Grade 11s on the team and it is nice to teach them something new and keep the Crossley basketball spirit alive. It’s playing good team basketball and not just scoring the ball.”
The dynamic scoring is something that has evolved over time.
“I have gotten a lot faster and better thanks to training with Niagara Apex. I have gotten a lot better at ball-handling, my ability to shoot and getting the ball up quicker. I used to be a little bit slow on my feet and now I can get by guys quicker.”
Kleinsmith has also had success as a distance runner winning an OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations)
bronze medal in cross country when he was in Grade 10. Basketball has taken over as his primary sport.
“I have been focusing more on basketball because it is more of a passion for me.”
He started playing since Grade 3. He started playing travel ball with the Pelham Panthers and bounced around Niagara a little bit before landing with the Burloak Prep in Burlington.
Crossley head coach Ryan Petro can’t say enough about what Kleinsmith brings to the court.
“Matthew is amazing. I have been able to coach him for the last three years and he is a pleasure to coach. He gives it 110 per cent every time he is out there,” he said. “He is a leader, he plays great defence, he plays great offence and brings his teammates up. He does everything you want.”
And he is much more in the scorer as one brief stretch of the fourth quarter illustrated. Leading 60-51, Kleinsmith had back-to-back primary assists and then a steal and a layup to give his team a healthy cushion.
“He knows he is going to bring a lot of attention to himself by the defence so whenever we can bring bodies to him on defence and get open players, he does a great job of finding them,” Petro said.
Crossley led 25-15 after one quarter, 35-31 at the half and 52-44 after three quarters before building an insurmountable lead halfway through the final quarter.
“We played hard, we really did, but they are a good team and 10 (Kleinsmith) is a heckuva player, 7 (Jayden Thompson) is a very good player and their big guy 44 (Luca Burattini) is a very good player,” GFESS head coach David Adamek said. “We battled and tried as hard as we could but we were missing a few guys. Noah (Gmoser) gave everything he had and we came up a little bit short today.”
Kleinsmith was a handful for the Gryphons all night and GFESS had no answers.
“We did all kind of stuff. We did a diamond and one and we played triangle and two a little but just to mix things up as much as we could and have him waste a couple of possessions.”
The Gryphons knew what was coming.
“We haven’t see him yet this year but I’ve seen the numbers and I know he can score and everybody told me he can play,” Adamek said. “He didn’t disappoint. He is a wicked player and we tried our best to slow him down a little bit and make someone else on their team beat us. We had spurts where I thought we were doing a really good job of that but they got us in the end.”
Petro was impressed with the play of the Gryphons.
“A tip of the hat to GFESS. They played a great game and showed us different looks on offence and made it hard the whole game while trying to shut down Matthew. They did a great job.”
He also liked his team’s effort.
“They competed for all four quarters and they did a good job of getting the ball into the low post for Luca and on to the perimeter for Matthew.”
Like GFESS, the Cyclone were short-staffed.
“We had a couple of kids at ski club, a couple of kids went ice fishing and we had a couple of kids who were injured,” Petro said. “We were down five tonight but all the kids that were here stepped up.”
STATS PACK
Cyclone 69 Gryphons 55
Mountainview Building Group Players of the Game: Crossley’s Matthew Kleinsmith and GFESS’s Noah Gmoser.
For the E.L. Crossley Cyclone: Kleinsmith 33; Jayden Thompson 15; Luca Burattini 14; Coleson Birrell 3; Ethan van Niekerk 2; Adam Dawson 2.
For the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons: Noah Gmoser 26; Nate Jones 13; Nick Alix 6; Omar Khan 5; Jason Currie 3; Jack Storring 3.
Up next: Crossley advances to the consolation finals against Saint Paul Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Notre Dame.
