Surprising Saints upset Reds
The St. Catharines Collegiate Saints have happily embraced the role of underdog.
The Saints defeated the Denis Morris Reds 54-37 Thursday afternoon in a consolation semifinal game at the 61st Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament giving themselves the opportunity to play for the consolation title on their home court Friday.
Not bad for the 16th-ranked team.
“Honestly, coming in as the 16th seed, no one thought we were going to make it to Friday,” Collegiate coach Allison Mauro said. “I think that the boys have worked so hard to get where they are. They’re gelling, they’re listening, they’ve bought into what we’re doing.
“They are so excited to be in a Friday game and they’ve worked so hard to get there and it’s nice to kind of surprise people. It’s just going to be so special regardless of the outcome for our guys just to be in that sort of atmosphere.”
Saints player of the game Kadmiel Patrong beamed with pride when asked what it meant to advance to Friday’s final versus the Smithville Christian Storm.
“I think it’s going to be great,” he said. “It will be so nice to be able to play in a gym full of our fans. Having a home court advantage is going to be huge. “It means a lot, honestly. That hasn’t happened in a while. And since we’re like almost underdogs and people don’t really look very high of us because we were the last place team.”
The Saints dropped their opening game of the tournament to No. 1 seed Saint Francis Phoenix, but shook that off to defeat the Ridley College Tigers Tuesday to advance to Thursday’s matchup with the No. 4 seed Reds.
“Going into today’s game, and against Ridley as well, we had a talk about how they weren’t expected to win,” Mauro said. “The 16th seed is not expected to upset No. 8 and No. 4. It was just a challenge for them to have to step up and meet the challenge.
“We told them they had nothing to lose, so this was just a game to go out and prove themselves and play their best defence. That’s what we focus on, just play your best defence.”
Mauro said the Saints are a tight-knit group.
“We’ve done a lot of team bonding,” she said. “We have a lot of lunchtime meetings, just talking to the guys about what’s expected. We had a tone talk at the beginning of the season where we just said we expect excellence and hard work. We either raise up to meet it or we don’t. But those are the expectations and they’ve taken it, they’ve embraced it, and we’re having success.”
Patrong can’t wait for Friday night.
“It would mean a lot, especially because this is my last year here,” he said. “Having a home court advantage is going to be huge. I feel like our community is going to be really stoked to hear that we’re going to the playoffs.”
STATS PACK
Saints 54 Reds 37
Cat’s Caboose Players of the Game: Collegiate’s Kadmiel Patrong and Denis Morris’ Cole Kelly.
For the St. Catharines Collegiate Saints: Kadmiel Patrong 21; Sean Hill 15; Kevin Gumiran 6; Gabriel Lefrancois 5; Soran Subhani 4; Gian Rozwel Villanueva 3;
For the Denis Morris Reds: Cole Kelly 15; Travis Palmer 14; Jack Millar 3; Geremy McRae 3; Sebastian Pena 2.
Up next: Collegiate advances to the consolation final Friday at 5:30 p.m. at St. Catharines Collegiate versus Smithville Christian.
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