Posted by Sudbury Northern Life Reporter Sabrina Byrnes 
The Cambrian Golden Shield men's basketball team took away the championship title this past weekend in the 38th Annual New Year's Classic Men's Basketball Tournament hosted by Loyalist College.
"The guys were pretty excited to come away with a tournament championship," said head coach Brad Hann.
"It could be a real confidence booster for us, which I think it should be. That of course means that we're taking the lessons that we've learned and applying them to practice...and together as a team and forward to the games on the weekend - translating those lessons into better play."
Hann said the team practiced really well after the holidays going into the tournament. They played against LaCite on Jan. 2 and defeated them 89-51.
"We beat them fairly easily," said Hann.
"It's hard to tell when you're beating somebody by that margin, how well you're actually doing and where your actual level of play is."
Cambrian went on to play against Lambton Saturday morning. Lambton plays in the West division and currently has the same record as Cambrian with five wins and four losses.
"It was going to be a pretty good test and I was pretty excited to play a team from the West," the head coach said.
The first half of that game Hann put on players who normally don't get a lot of minutes during regular season play, and was quite pleased with the results.
"I was quite happy at the end of the first half. We were up by eight and we had played all of that half without two of our starters," he said.
"That was one of the important lessons for this past weekend, was that we have guys that can come off the bench and contribute right away."
Cambrian took a win of 74-63 against Lambton, putting them into the final round against Centennial.
Cambrian has already played and beaten Centennial in regular season play, but since then Centennial has formed a new team adding players to their roster over Christmas.
"They were certainly looking forward to proving to us that when we beat them the first semester, that was with a team that wasn't the team they had at that moment," Hann claimed.
"They came out with a lot of energy and they actually went up on us fairly quickly, just because we didn't get that great of a start, but then we chipped away and chipped away...took a big lead in the first half."
Cambrian kept that lead to finish the second half, earning them the championship with a final score of  79-69.
"I think one thing that we have to be proud of is that we stuck together as a team and worked hard in the first semester and we didn't bring anybody new in. That's not my coaching philosophy is to bring a whole a bunch of new guys in at Christmas time in the hopes of getting a few more wins in the second semester," Hann stated.
"The team we start with at the beginning is the team we finish with at the end of the season. That cohesion, that chemistry, has to mean something in the face of playing a team that has just picked up five or six guys..."
Brady Bolan was named an all star of the tournament, and Gerome Bailey was awarded MVP.
"Both of them were well deserved, and I was quite happy for Gerome. He's been with us now for four years and gone through some pretty high times and some pretty low times and has stuck through it all the way," said the head coach.
This was the first time that Cambrian has participated in the Loyalist tournament, and now their name is on the list of champions dating back from 1981.
"I was just really excited for the guys. I told them after the game..it won't be a big deal down the road, but it's still a little piece of history," Hann said.
"Cambrian was not on that list, but we're on that list now, so we can carry that little piece of history forward as a team for good."
The Golden Shield now hopes to carry that momentum into their upcoming weekend games where they will be hosting Seneca at 7 p.m. on Friday and George Brown at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.
