Simcoe and West Niagara to meet in championship semifinals

The Governor Simcoe Redcoats player of the game Tuesday in an 82-45 romp over the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons in the championship quarter-finals of the 61st Standard High School Boys Basketball Tournament is not suffering from an identity crisis.

“I consider myself a lacrosse player playing basketball,” 18-year-old Ari Steenhuis said, moments after scoring 22 points to help his team take out the Gryphons.

The 6-foot-4 player started his junior lacrosse at the B level in 2023 before moving up to junior A after six games. This past spring and summer, he suited up the entire season with the junior Athletics.

His lacrosse background is a big help for the 12B student on the basketball court.

“The defence in both is very similar; having a man, switching and getting picked. It is all kind of the same thing in both games except one has a stick and one has a ball.”

Competing in basketball also aids his lacrosse game and his goal of getting a scholarship.

“Cardio and quickness. Basketball is a big first step game — beating your guy off the first step — so it helps out with lacrosse.”

He clearly has a lot of fun on the basketball court.

“I came back for 12B because I didn’t want to go away for school somewhere else. I thought I would stay at Simcoe and I ended up playing basketball. It’s nice to play again because this is probably my last year playing basketball.”

Simcoe head coach Shaun Feor loves having Steenhuis on his roster.

“He complements the team and really does it all with his athleticism. Obviously lacrosse is his first sport but it translates really well to the basketball court,” he said. “He complements our shooters and his size and strength are phenomenal.”

Steenhuis has made improvements in his game from last season.

“It’s his maturity,” Feor said. “He is a lot more aggressive. You saw him get to the rim a few times today compared to last year when he would meet contact in the middle and get jammed up. Now he is plowing through it and getting home.”

Steenhuis agrees with that assessment.

“This year I am playing more of a big (man) role almost. Not sitting in the paint but getting inside, getting the ball and getting to the basket more,” he said. “I feel more confident taking the ball to the rim, even taking a floater from midrange. Last year, sometimes you would see me hanging out on the three-point line.”

The Gryphons were hanging tough in the second quarter before the Redcoats went on a big run and rolled into halftime with a 41-17 lead. Simcoe built it to 67-34 after three quarters and cruised home.

“We had a bit of a game plan but No. 11 (Noah Budgell) is a fantastic player and so is their player of the game (Steenhuis). They are incredible athletes and they weren’t the only two guys on the team,” GFESS head coach Dave Adamek said. “They are tall, they can run, they’re athletic, they can finish and they are a nice team. We wanted to slow things down and hopefully hit a couple of our shots at the same time and it didn’t quite work out that way.”

The Gryphons tried hard but were missing one of their better players.

“It hindered us a little but and some of the other guys on the team took more of a hit, maybe even on the mental side of it, trying to play without so and so but we tried hard,” he said. “Even going into the fourth when it didn’t look very good in our favour, I told them that we played fantastic yesterday and we have a long season to build upon. I am looking forward to practice on Thursday and Friday. We have a whole bunch of things we can improve upon.”

Adamek likes playing early in the season in the Standard tournament against good competition.

“Absolutely. The waves are pretty extreme. We played great yesterday and we had bit of a dud today. We had some moments where we were good but for the most part they gave it to us pretty good today. I hope they do a good job the rest of the week.”

Feor liked how his second-seeded team rebounded after nearly squeaking out a two-point win over 15th-seeded Holy Cross Monday.

“Things seemed to be clicking better. I don’t know what happened yesterday. First and foremost the effort and energy coming into the game was much higher than yesterday,” he said. “I don’t know if it was nerves on Day 1 of the Standard tournament but they seemed to shake them today.”

He didn’t mind his team getting a wake-up call early in the tournament.

“There is a silver lining to everything. We certainly don’t want to take anyone for granted. We saw a lot of upsets yesterday in the first round and we could have been one of those casualties but we worked our way through it and today we turned the screws.”

STATS PACK

Redcoats 82 Gryphons 45

Cat’s Caboose Players of the Game: Simcoe’s Ari Steenhuis and GFESS’s Ethan Pooler.

For the Governor Simcoe Redcoats: Noah Budgell 24; Ari Steenhuis 22; Nate Sweeney 10; Reid Oakes 8; Thomas Vukovic 6; Nate Vander Meer 4; Anderson Blanchard 3; Emerson Wood 3

For the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons: Carter Lewis 10; Nate Jones 6; Michael Bielich 6; Jack Storring 4; Kaiden Hickens 4; Harland Kelly 4; Korde Hill 3; Carter Reichel 2; Aiden Storring 2; Ethan Pooler 2; Joseph Ramsey 2.

WOLFPACK 62 THUNDER 53

The third-seeded West Niagara Wolfpack moved on to the championship semifinals of the 61st Standard High School Boys Basketball Tournament Tuesday at home with a 62-53 victory against the sixth-seeded Blessed Trinity Thunder.

Scoring for the Wolfpack were: Julian Sobota 30; Owen Bowman 10; Ben Unrau 9; Chrystian Kyslytsya 4; Parker Weston-Thwaites 2; Jordan Love 2; and, Scott D’Cunha 2.

Netting points for the Thunder were: Luka Rafanelli 23; Matteo Villella 15; Noah Ferreira 5; Mico Penich 2; Danijel Skrban 2; Tre’von Higgins 2; Matteo Pesut 2; and, Antonio Plesa 2.

Cat’s Caboose Players of the Game were Sobota for West Niagara and Rafanelli for BT.