Raiders come close to upset; Bulldogs edge Tigers
The Holy Cross Raiders came within a basket of pulling off a huge upset Monday.
The 15th-ranked Raiders threw a huge scare into the second-seeded Governor Simcoe Redcoats before dropping a 48-46 decision at Thorold in one of eight opening round games at the 61st Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament.
Raiders guard Joseph Young led his team with 27 points and said the Raiders have no fear.
“Oh no, we’re not intimidated by any team,” the 18-year-old, Grade 12B student said. “We just go out and play our hardest, see what happens.”
The Raiders had a legitimate chance to pull off the upset but Simcoe’s Ari Steenhuis blocked an attempted three-point shot that would have given the Raiders the win as time expired.
“We wanted to come out hard and we wanted to just make a big upset,” Young said. “We almost had it, but we’re going to try to win the consolation now and try our best and work hard.”
Young said the longer the game went, the more the Raiders felt like they had a shot to win.
“We started slow in the first. And then second, third, we picked it up,” he said “I heated up, the whole team heated up, and we thought we had a chance and we did, but unfortunately missed the shot.”
Young would love nothing more than to be part of a consolation championship team after COVID wiped out his first two years of basketball.
“It means a lot because I didn’t get the chance to play basketball my first two years of high school, so this is my only third year,” he said. “ We’re just going and we’re going to win the consolation.”
Holy Cross coach Austin Anderson was understandably proud of the effort.
“We competed really well. We had a game plan to stop their two best players in a kind of a condensed zone,” he said. “Amazingly we played really well today. In the close game like that the little finer details matter.”
Anderson is also hopeful of an extended run this week.
“I think we have a good chance. I think we’re pretty confident that we have a good avenue to playing Friday night,” he said. “Especially now we’ve had our season start with St. Francis, we played Eden last week, and we’re kind of just getting into gear and the guys are finding their way.”
Simcoe coach Shaun Feor tipped his cap to the Raiders.
“They were really a spirited bunch of players. If we were part of the Catholic board, I would not want to be playing these guys later down the road, because they’re going to continue to develop and get even better,” he said.
Feor, who just returned from a Mexican vacation, said the Redcoats need time to come together.
“For us, it’s so early in the year. Just based on schedule, this is our third game technically, but we’ve had two exhibition games, so a bit of steep learning curve,” he said. “We’re trying to replace some guys that left last year, trying to install systems, and stuff like that. And then, with me being off for a week, it didn’t help much as well.”
STATS PACK
Redcoats 48 Raiders 46
Cat’s Caboose Players of the Game: Simcoe’s Noah Budgell and Joseph Young of Holy Cross.
Governor Simcoe Redcoats: Noah Budgell 30; Ari Steenhuis 9; Anderson Blanchard 5; Reid Oakes 2; Lucas Landry 2.
Holy Cross Raiders: Joseph Young 27; Matteo D’Aria 19; Terrell Wallace 2; Tristan Peters 2.
BULLDOGS 81 TIGERS 78
Drase Charles and Seth Jafelice each netted 20 as the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs edged the Ridley Tigers.
Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs: Drase Charles 20; Seth Jafelice 20; Isaak Pino Martinez 18; DeAndre Lindsay 8; Owen Scott 4; Leo Uttley 4; Toheer Sumbade 3; Noah Rose 3; Azlan Dhami 1.
Ridley Tigers: Nicholas Nyimbili 29; Seun Martins 12; Rafael Cokcan 9; Hayden King-Nickle 6; Dominic Akpan 6; Justus Borchers 5; Amv Fayed 4; Ryan Chan 3; Patrick Joo 2; Kevin Hu 2.
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