Wolfpack wins first championship

The West Niagara Wolfpack senior boys basketball team made history Tuesday afternoon at Eden.

With a 61-45 victory over the defending champion Eden Flyers, the Wolfpack won their first ever Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Zone 4 senior boys AAA championship.

“It feels really good,” said West Niagara’s Julian Sobota, who scored 12 points and was selected as his team’s player of the game. “The fact that it has never been done before for a new school, we are making a name for ourselves.”

It made it even more special for Sobota knowing that he is graduating this spring.

“It is awesome.”

The Grade 12 player pointed to a number of factors that made the team a zone champion.

“Our coaching was really good with Rob Bowman and we had a lot of good role players on the team who stepped up. We had three or four guys who stepped up and showed the Grade 11s how to play our zone defence and offence and set up plays. We ran really fast at practice and we put a lot of work in to get here.”

Head coach Bowman was thrilled with the win.

“It feels pretty awesome. I had a good core of these guys in junior in my first year and we went to the zone championship and won. Then last year we went 8-0 and then lost in the (junior) finals. This year was redemption for those boys and I couldn’t be more proud. For the seniors who are leaving, this huge for them.”

The biggest difference in the final was the Wolfpack hit more shots.

“Although their key players hit shots, they weren’t dropping like they normally do. And we spread the wealth around. We had a lot of people on the scoresheet and that’s what we need to do to be successful,” Bowman said.

Leading the way was Sobota.

“Julian has been with us since Day 1 with two years of junior and two years of senior. He leads the team with his outstanding shooting and character. We told him today that if he played good D, he would get his offensive looks and that’s what happened. He hit some clutch three for us today,” Bowman said.

The team will now head to the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association championships with a goal of winning.

For the Flyers, their lack of finish proved to be their undoing.

“The first quarter was not our best basketball, for sure, but in the second quarter we started clicking a little better but our finish wasn’t there,” Eden head coach Jonathon Thorpe said. “We were getting the ball in to where we needed to get it but then we were missing at the basket and missing shots we would normally hit.”

There was one more factor that hurt the Flyers.

“We had a lot of balls knocked out of our hands in and around the basket as well. They were swiping down on the ball quite a bit and knocking it out of for hands.”

It was another strong year for the Flyers even with the loss.

“It has been a good season for these guys and there is no hanging our head,” Thorpe said. “The goal was to get back to SOSSA and that would have been nice but we have had a good run for the last five or six years.”

STATS PACK

Wolfpack 61 Flyers 45

Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Eden’s Kai Schatz with 31 points.

For the West Niagara Wolfpack: Ben Unrau 13; Julian Sobota 12; Parker Weston-Thwaites 12; Chrystian Kyslytsya 9; Scott D’Cunha 7; Owen Bowman 5; Jordan Love 2.

For the Eden Flyers: Schatz 31; Dominic Olesin 7; Steven Necakov-Waller 4; Noah Whyte 2; Francesco Forte 2;

Up next: West Niagara advances to the SOSSA playdowns Thursday at Eden.