Saints march into semifinals
Tykree Llewellyn was too hot to handle Tuesday.
The 18-year-old, Grade 12 student was a force at both ends of the court as the St. Catharines Collegiate Saints defeated the Holy Cross Raiders 57-52 in a consolation round quarter-final game at the 57th Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament.
Llewellyn is a Toronto native who moved to St. Catharines this season and is experiencing his first Standard Tournament.
“I had no idea,” he said when asked about the tournament. “It’s very big. I like the popularity of it.”
The power forward netted 18 in an opening-round loss and followed that up with 17 points in another solid effort Tuesday.
“It feels really good. I’m really proud,” he said.
Llewellyn, who stands 6-foot-3 and looks much more like a football player — he did suit up on the gridiron for the Saints — brings both a physical presence and a nice scoring touch to the hardwood.
“He did play football, but basketball is definitely his passion,” said Allison Mauro, who is coaching the Saints this season with Adria Campbell. “Seeing him come to tryouts. . . we had the height already but he brings the size a lot of our other guys just don’t have. He brings some muscle under the net which is awesome.”
Mauro also made it clear Llewellyn brings much more than just size to the court.
“He’s a heart and soul player,” she said. “He pulls down rebounds and is smart offensively. He sees the court well but he also knows when to distribute and pass so it’s nice to have both sides of the coin.”
Llewellyn, who plans to study police foundations and play basketball at Niagara College next year, said the Saints focused on defence in the pre-game plan.
“We knew they were going to play zone against us so we didn’t want to have any turnovers and get into the transition,” he said.
Mauro said the Saints’ defence won them the game.
“We talked a lot about defence. Watching their game yesterday, we saw they had a lot of awareness where the help was coming in passing the ball,” she said. “We talked a lot about getting help and how to rotate. All of our focus was completely on defence.
“On offence our plan was to move the ball to make it a team effort to have equal scoring and move the ball and not to settle for the first shot.”
The Saints are now halfway to their goal.
“It’s super-exciting. I know all the guys are pumped,” she said. They had aspirations of getting to the consolation finals Friday night, that was our goal. It’s nice because it’s the first year Adria and I are coaching so it’s nice to have some success.”
Campbell and Mauro were pressed into service when head coach Bob Krzeczkowski became unavailable.
Stats pack
Saints 57 Raiders 52
No Limit Performance/Kully’s Players of the Game: Collegiate’s Tykree Llewellyn with 17 points and Adrian Waszak of Holy Cross with 19.
For the St. Catharines Collegiate Saints: Llewellyn 17; Clayton Thomas-Harris 15; Jerrell Plumadore 10; Joseph Waterman 6; Ethan Taylor 5; Nathan Taylor 2; Justin Crawford 2.
For the Holy Cross Raiders: Waszak 19; Isaiah Amio 14; Ibukun Gbengabanjo 10; Tinashe Dandato 8; Bruce Deluca 1.
Consolation round
Gryphons 68 Navs 44
Micah Stewart poured in 20 points to lead the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons past the Niagara Christian Navs in a quarter-final game played at St. Francis.
Also scoring for the Greater Gryphons were: Austin Ladouceur 14; Avery Parker 13; Ethan Vanatter 11; Kiernan Connelly 3; Novontay Brown 3; Zack Tyrlell 2; Donovan Morgan 2
Scoring for the Niagara Christian Navigators were: Neil Wangler 14; Dayo Williams 9; Ambrose Woo 6; David Lai 5; Raymond Xiang 5; David Moffat 4.
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