Big Shot Sam leads Phoenix to 11th Standard title

The Riddell brothers have a long history of playing winning basketball for the Saint Francis basketball program.

Max Riddell was an excellent all-around, tenacious player, Jack Riddell was a sharpshooter who gunned his way to a Standard MVP title in 2016 and Sam Riddell wrote the latest chapter in his family’s basketball lore Friday night at St. Catharines Collegiate with a timely performance in the Phoenix’s 53-42 victory over the Governor Simcoe Redcoats in the championship game of the 61st Standard High School Boys Basketball Tournament.

The Grade 11 player was named his team’s Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game with a team-high 14 points but it was his performance in the fourth quarter that stood out.

The Redcoats had cut Saint Francis’ lead to 41-37 from 41-34 with less than four minutes left in the game when Riddell hit a pair of back-to-back, clutch three-pointers to give the Phoenix a much more comfortable 47-37 lead that they would not relinquish.

“That’s why he is in the game because I know that is what he can do,” Saint Francis head coach Rich Alderson said. “I have coached him for the last three years now and I have all the confidence in the world that Sam is going to shoot us out of a lot of trouble and he did it again today. He’s Big Shot Sam.”

Alderson is used to having a Riddell come to the rescue.

“It’s a lineage. I had Sam, I had Jack and Max and the Riddell boys have been part of my life at Saint Francis. To tell you the truth, I have won a lot of games because of the Riddells.”

Alderson is looking forward to Sam’s continued development.

“He is a good shooter and he is just learning to revolutionize his game by trying to get to the basket. He did a lot of good things today, getting some rebounds and moving the ball.”

The 16-year-old knew his role going into the game.

“Coming off the bench, I just wanted to bring intensity and I knew I could shoot the ball. I just wanted to shoot it the best I could because I knew I was going to get some open shots in that Simcoe zone and I let it fly.”

He wasn’t thinking about much when he launched his back-to-back threes in the final quarter.

“I knew it was a tight game and I wanted to get back on defence. I was pretty pumped up with the crowd and everything.”

His brothers gave him some advice before the game.

“Just be aggressive, be tough, rebound and get the ball.”

He will have plenty of memories from championship night.

“It was the crowd and that ball going into the net.”

Riddell felt his team was successful this week because it played together, communicated well and played great defence.

“We didn’t shoot the ball well against Eden (in the semifinal) but we came out strong in the second half.”
He agreed Simcoe gave them a good game.

“More than expected.”

The Redcoats clearly gave the Phoenix their biggest challenge of the tournament. Saint Francis built a 13-3 lead in the first quarter but Simcoe rallied to cut the lead to 15-10 heading into the second quarter. Saint Francis then built 29-20 and 39-32 second- and third-quarter margins to set the stage for an exciting finish.

“They worked their butts off. They are long, they are athletic, Noah (Budgell) is so talented and they played a two-man game with Noah and Ari (Steenhuis) and it was tough to handle,” Alderson said. “They were long and they gave us trouble out of that three-two (zone).”

The Phoenix made Budgell and Steenhuis work harder and harder for their chances as the game went along.

“In the second half, we were a lot better but in the first half we gave them a lot of easy buckets. That was one of the things that we wanted to work on in the second half; to make them work for every basket,” he said. “If we did that, I knew we were going to hit some shots coming down the stretch just like we did in the semifinal. I’m not worried about our team hitting shots and we got lucky and made a few.”

After watching his team win the school’s 11th Standard tournament title this past week, Alderson saw a lot of good things and a few not so good ones.

“We are trying a different style this year and we are playing an up-tempo pace and it caught up to us a little bit today. I think we played too fast at times and we didn’t take care of the ball,” Alderson said. “I think that is going to help us moving on because we can look back to this final and say ‘If you get ahead of yourself, this is what happens.’ I don’t know if you have stats on turnovers but omigosh. We had an excessive amount of turnovers today. I want to give credit to Simcoe but I thought a lot of that was us playing too fast.”

Simcoe coach Shaun Feor gave props to the Phoenix.

“Hats off to St. Francis. This has been what, a 10-year, 12-year run that they’ve been doing this. They are literally built like a prep team. I’ve coached college before, I’ve coached high school and they are 14 or 15 guys deep, and they are literally like a prep team. So for us to come from Governor Simcoe, where we have maybe one or two basketball players and a handful of athletes, I couldn’t be any prouder of the effort my fight my boys put into that,” he said.

The Redcoats had some tough luck around the basket at times.

“There was a lid-on-the-rim in a couple moments where we got to the rim, it was just a matter of finishing, and it was just l tough roll or tough bounce here or there,” Feor said.

Named the MVP of the tournament was Simcoe’s Noah Budgell, who averaged 30 points in the game, including 23 in the final. Budgell’s 120 total points in the tournament broke the all-time scoring record set back in 1984 by tournament co-chair John Pilling, who led St. Catharines Collegiate to the championship with an MVP performance.

Budgell would gladly trade the MVP award for winning the tournament, but was appreciative of the award.

“The first people I want to thank are my coaches and my teammates. They are a great group of guys, all them work hard and they are a great group in the locker room. My coaches are my greatest inspirations, I love where I am at and it is a great place to be.”

The 6-foot-4 player had no idea he was on the cusp of breaking Pilling’s scoring record.

“I think it was better that I didn’t know because maybe I would have got in my own head but I am really glad and really surprised to be honest.”

It was a special week overall for the Grade 12 student.

“It is what I look forward to every year. It’s the time where I get to play against the best teams and the best players and I am competitor so I love that.”

His favourite moment during the week was getting to play with his team.

“I love the energy that we bring, we never give up, we play to the end and I love that. We are not a group of basketball players but we battle hard and play as a team.”

Budgell is planning to return for his 12B year at Simcoe.

“Hopefully we can do it again and be on the other end and get the win.”

Also named to the tournament First All-Star Team were: Eden’s Kai Schatz, who averaged 32 points a game in the tournament, including 50 points in his team’s opener and 25 in a semifinal loss to Saint Francis; Saint Francis’ Jack Ciocca, who averaged 13.8 points a game in the tournament, including nine in the final; Saint Francis’ Elijah Quissua, who averaged 9.3 points a game in the tournament, including 12 in the final; and, Governor Simcoe’s Ari Steenhuis, who averaged 10.8 points a game in the tournament, including four in the final.

Selected to the Second All-Star Team were: Collegiate’s Sean Hill, who averaged 21.8 points per game in the tournament, including 27 in the consolation final; Governor Simcoe’s Reid Oates, who averaged eight points per game in the tournament, including 10 in the championship game; Saint Francis’ Awab Ali, who averaged 5.8 points per game in the tournament, including six in the championship game; Saint Francis’ Andrew Ens, who averaged 7.3 points per game in the tournament, including three in the championship game; and, Saint Francis’ Sam Riddell, who averaged seven points per game in the tournament, including a game-high 14 in the championship game.

STATS PACK

Phoenix 53 Redcoats 42

Cat’s Caboose Players of the Game: Noah Budgell of Simcoe and Sam Riddell of Saint Francis.

For the Saint Francis Phoenix: Sam Riddell 14; Elijah Quissua 12; Jack Ciocca 9; Awab Ali 6; Andrew Ens 3; Austin Hinds 3; Nawaf Kigab 2; Marley Smith 2; Sadiekie Hayden 2.

For the Governor Simcoe Redcoats: Noah Budgell 23; Reid Oakes 10; Anderson Blanchard 5; Ari Steenhuis 4.