Saints march to consolation title
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It is a classic rags to riches story.
The St. Catharines Collegiate Saints came into the 61st Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament ranked 16th but quickly proved the rankings wrong.
The Saints dropped their first game to the top-seeded Saint Francis Phoenix, then re-grouped and set their sights on a consolation title.
The Saints achieved their goal Friday night, defeating the Smithville Christian Storm 48-42 in the consolation final on their home court.
“Honestly, I’m over the moon for them,” Saints coach Allison Mauro said. “To be experiencing this kind of success that we haven’t had in almost 40 years at our school is huge. There is not a more deserving team that we’ve ever coached than this team so it’s so nice to see them all have so much success because they’re so deserving of it.”
Sean Hill, who led the Saints with 27 points in the win, could hardly contain himself trying to explain what the win meant to the school.
“It’s just incredible,” he said. “It’s been years since we’ve been in a final. I just gave my all but I’m so happy we got back on the home stage and just won it.
“I’m speechless, I don’t know what to say. It’s just amazing.”
Hill said the school was abuzz Friday in anticipation of the game.
“We got a lot of support in the crowd, so I’m thankful for that,” he said.
Mauro, too, appreciated the school’s support.
“It was amazing,” she said. “So many staff members were out supporting us — our principals, vice principals were here. This is all the school talked about today, yesterday. It was a huge, huge rallying point for our school and something everyone was so excited about. It was so nice to see so many staff supporting us.”
Mauro said she and fellow coach Adria Campbell had a feeling the Saints might be in for a memorable week following the loss Monday.
“When we played St. Francis, we went into it knowing that it was going to be a tough game, it was going to be what it was,” she said. “The thing that we saw that was special about these guys was they actually played all the way to the fourth quarter, which is really difficult to do when you’re up against a team like that with a score like that. So when we saw that we knew we had something special with our guys, so our goal quickly became to make it to Friday.”
The Saints jumped out to a quick 17-6 lead after one quarter and were up 30-18 at the half.
Mauro said the early lead took the edge off some pre-game butterflies.
“When we started the game, we said we were just gonna take it quarter by quarter. We needed to win each quarter. We broke it down four minutes at a time. Seeing them pump out with the intensity that they came out with, I think they lost their jitters and nervousness right away,” she said. In the changing before the game, they definitely knew they had a lot to do tonight. They knew that they were up against it and they were nervous. But seeing the first four minutes of basketball, I think their confidence just grew.
“They knew that they deserved to be here.”
Smithville Christian head coach Sam Scandinavo was impressed with the Saints.
“Kudos to the coaching staff and the players on the other team. They played absolutely spectacular defence and we couldn’t break their two-three (zone) for a period of time and then we adjusted. When it counted, they showed up.”
He had no issues with how his team performed in the Standard tournament.
“I liked the fight. The fight was good for the whole week. We talked on Monday and we got lost a little bit in the second half. The last two games we played extremely well and I think we are coming together. We had one practice before this tournament and now you’re seeing it is evident now. I look forward to the remainder of the regular season.”
It was the second straight year the Storm lost in the consolation final.
“Thank you for reminding me,” Scandinavo said, with a smile. “Next year, we are going to come back with a vengeance.”
STATS PACK
Saints 48 Storm 42
Dan Chamberlain Henley Honda Player of the Game: Collegiate’s Sean Hill and Smithville’s Logan Higginson.
For the St. Catharines Collegiate Saints: Sean Hill 27; Gabriel Lefrancois 9; Gian Rozwel Villanueva 6; Kadmiel Patrong 4; Kevin Gumiran 2..
For the Smithville Christian Storm: Logan Higginson 13; Christopher Nyakabasa 12;Daniel Attia 8; Derrick Posthumus 6; Bo Langendoen 2.
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