Footballer leads Myer into Trib finals
Noah Walters doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what he is on the basketball court for the A.N. Myer Marauders senior boys basketball team.
“I’ve got to be honest. I am a football player playing basketball because I just love the game of football and I come here for fun,” the Grade 11 student said Friday night, after being named his team’s player of the game in a 66-50 victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the championship semifinals of 67th Annual Welland Tribune Basketball Tournament Friday at Notre Dame.
Walters had 11 points, 15 rebounds and three steals in the game and is averaging 12 points a game in the tournament.
“He is really an incredible athlete. He is a Grade 11 student and more of a football-focused guy but you can just tell he is quite the athlete. He plays almost the whole game and he’s able to do good things in the first quarter and the fourth quarter,” Myer head coach Tyler Thomson said. “He is a great guy to have around.”
Walters pays travel basketball for the Niagara Falls Red Raiders but brings a football mentality to the basketball court.
“I just hustle all day on the court and that’s what I do. That is my role and job,” he said. “I want to outrun the other team and play aggressive.”
The 16-year-old joined the Myer basketball team late after helping the Marauders senior football team capture Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association and Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations bowls.
“I missed a couple of tournaments early and I came back a little late but this tournament is good. I’m just hoping we can get the win tomorrow.”
The 16-year-old agreed it took time to find his bearings on the basketball court.
“I started playing about a month ago so it was about now. I think it was this week that I finally started to play better.”
Basketball is good cross training for football.
“It keeps me active and keeps me running. I’m sprinting up and down the court and it makes me faster for football.”
His football coaches don’t need to worry about him switching sports any time soon.
“There’s something about it and I just love playing football. It’s everything I want.”
Notre Dame grabbed an early 7-3 lead but Myer ended the quarter on an 8-0 run to lead 11-7. Things went from bad to worse for the Irish in the second quarter as they were outscored 24-10 and fell behind 35-17. Notre Dame outscored Myer 33-31 in the second half but it wasn’t enough to make up for an ugly eight minutes.
“I told our team after the game that we had one bad quarter and you have to remember that. You have to play four quarters or that is what the outcome is going to be,” Notre Dame head coach Andy Lucchetta said. “You can’t play a half or three quarters of a game. You have to play the whole thing.”
It was a second quarter Lucchetta would rather forget.
“I think we just got away from how we play. The game became a bit frantic and they like to play high energy, tough defence,” he said. “We couldn’t slow down the pace to what we wanted and, at the end of the day, we just couldn’t make shots in the second quarter.”
Thomson felt his team got off to a slow start before catching fire.
“I think we were a little bit nervous. We lost in the semis last year in this tournament and I think it was on the guys’ minds. It worked out in the end and we were happy that we were able to get going in the second quarter.”
A lot went right for the Marauders in that quarter.
“I’m not sure why. Sometimes we come out a little but slowly and it is a bad habit that our team has. Once we started running the floor more, the guys just started playing basketball more naturally instead of going out there and being nervous about playing,” Thomson said. “That’s when we play our best basketball.”
STATS PACK
Marauders 66 Irish 50
Mountainview Building Group Players of the Game:Myer’s Noah Walters and Notre Dame’s Trent Groulx
For the A.N. Myer Marauders: Isaiah Corsaro-Oteng 24; Tanner Pare-Smith 12; Jayke Arnold 11; Walters 11; Tavish McMahon 7.
For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Groulx 14; Andrew Benko 12; Nicholas Cappreta 12; David Babalola 4; William Benko 3; Michael Ventresca 3; Devon Devost 2
Up next: Myer advances to the championship finals against Eden Saturday at 7 p.m. at Notre Dame.
