Lynx relegated to consolation bracket at OFSAA
It is more about just wins and losses for the St. Jean-de-Brebeuf Lynx at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) senior A boys basketball championships.
The host Lynx dropped a pair of games Monday as the tournament began, but head coach Eric Labonte feels it is important to look past the final scores.
“If you enjoy playing the sport it doesn’t matter what the score is,” Labonte said. “If you’re out there hustling and working hard, good things will happen. Sometimes the W is not always the end goal. If we can learn something out of this game and move on from that and maybe compete a bit better in the next game, those are the little goals in the game.”
The Lynx dropped a 60-42 decision to the No.6 seed Timmins Blues before a packed gym on their home court Monday morning before losing 94-61 to the No. 3 seed Notre Dame Silver Eagles of Ottawa Monday afternoon at Niagara College.
The Silver Eagles were upset Monday morning by the No. 17 seed Monsignor J. Pereyma Patriots of Oshawa which pitted them against the 16th-ranked Lynx. The Patriots took out their frustration from the morning loss on the Lynx, quickly jumping out to a huge lead and kept the pressure up the entire game.
“Those guys were definitely something,” Lynx guard Daniel Charest said. “I was not expecting that when I came into the game. I heard the 17th seed beat them this morning and I was expecting maybe the rankings were messed up but they came out here and showed they deserved to be a three seed.”
With such a huge deficit to overcome — the Lynx trailed 57-24 at the half — Labonte did his best to keep his club motivated.
“My biggest message at halftime was to play with pride. I wrote on my board to play with pride and respect the sport,” he said.
The morning affair was a closer contest played before an enthusiastic crowd at Brebeuf.
“It was definitely electric,” Charest said. “It was sick having all my friends from school and the whole gym being filled.”
Labonte enjoyed the experience as well.
“It was really good,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago we had that same atmosphere and it was a much tighter game and sometimes you draw off a crowd. Being host team it does give us that little advantage of the home crowd but being at the level we are, we have some stuff to learn if we want to compete at this level next year. We have to tweak some things on offence and defence.”
Charest led the Lynx in scoring with 11 points in each game and Labonte admitted he will miss his gradating point guard.
“He usually brings a sense of calmness to the team, a sense of control. He sees the court very well and leads by example,” Labonte said. “I’ve been with him since Grade 9 and I saw the player and the ability he had.”
The Lynx are now regulated to the consolation bracket and will play again Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Niagara College.
“Coming in as a 16th seed you maybe have hopes for an upset, it doesn’t always happen — it rarely happens — so tomorrow if we can do something on the consolation side and play and extra game or two, it will give us that experience and sense of accomplishment,” Labonte said.
Charest (11), Enzo Ako (8) and Princeley Toge (6) led the Lynx in the morning game.
Charest (11), Trysten Brisebois (7) and Brydon Tshowa-M’Baya (7) paced Breubef in the afternoon affair.
https://www.ofsaa.on.ca/championship/basketball-boys-a/
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