Knights too much for Fighting Irish (updated with second game)
Andrew Benko is well aware in order to be the best, you have to compete against the best.
“I enjoy these type of challenges. It’s going to get me better, it’s going to get the team better,” Benko said Friday morning after the Notre Dame Fighting Irish dropped a 78-54 decision to the Notre Dame Knights of Brampton to kick off the 47th All Ontario Catholic Classic Basketball Tournament. “That’s all we want is to get better as basketball players.”
The Knights are the second seed in the tournament and were Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) AAA semifinalists last year.
“It’s not our normal competition,” said Benko, who led the Irish with 25 points. “We knew coming in these guys got fourth at OFSAA and they lost at a buzzer-beater so we knew it was going to be a tough game. We knew we were going to have to grind it out.
“They’re really athletic. They have a lot more kids to pick from. Every guy on the team can dunk, every guy can shoot the three. They’re just basketball players.”
Benko feels the Irish can draw upon the lessons learned Friday down the road.
“It’s going to help up tremendously playing this type of competition,” he said. “We know we’re going to see this at the championship game of NCAA (Niagara Catholic Athletic Association), the SOSSA (Southern Ontario Secondary School Association) semifinals and SOSSA finals and eventually if we get to OFSAA as well.”
The Knights led 23-11 after one quarter and 40-24 at the half.
“We ran out of steam in the third quarter and we just couldn’t make our shots,” Fighting Irish coach Andrew Lucchetta said. “We had opportunities. We make some of those shots and it’s a closer game. We rebounded well at times and had some great looks, but even from the free-throw line we missed a bunch of free throws so a 20-point game could have easily been a 10-point game.”
The Irish had trouble containing Knights’ big man Tafari Harrison, who led all scorers with 31 points.
“The game plan was to take away the middle,” Lucchetta said. “I knew they were good inside with their big men and obviously we’re a bit undersized. We tried our best to come out in a zone where we could pack the middle. Unfortunately, they started hitting threes early on so we got out of that look to try and prevent all the threes.”
The Irish were without Grade 12 forward Devon Devost, which didn’t help.
“Having Devon out hurt us. Having those extra legs off the bench definitely helps,” Lucchetta said.
The Fighting Irish now move to the consolation side of the bracket.
“It’s so important to take it seriously. Just because it’s the consolation side doesn’t mean we’ll take it any less seriously,” Benko said.
STATS PACK
Knights 77 Irish 54
Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Tafari Harrison of the Notre Dame Knights with 31 points.
Brampton Notre Dame Knights: Harrison 31; Gershon Mbobi 15; Jahvon Givance 14.
Welland Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Andrew Benko 25; William Benko 9; Nicholas Capretta 7; Trent Groulx 7.
Irish 61 Raiders 53
Fighting Irish rebounded to defeat the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders of Oakville 61-53 in their second game of the day.
Scoring for the Irish were: Trent Groulx 21, Andrew Benko 18, William Benko 11; Michael Ventresca 6; Colten Kizlyk 3; David Babaloa 2.
Leading the Raiders were David Canizalez with 17 and Rocco Santos with 15.
The Irish advance to the consolation semifinals Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at Denis Morris.
Thanks to scorers Lila Di Pietro, Nicole Dixon and Ben Tsanoff at Notre Dame for their help.
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