With a handful of Sudbury's top high school basketball teams on hand for the 60th Arthur Gabor (Tomahawk) Classic in North Bay, it's no small wonder some were still kicking around come time for Saturday finals.
The Collège Notre-Dame Alouettes senior boys worked their way through to the championship affair, losing 66-39 to the Orillia Secondary School Nighthawks, an impressive collection of talent that shot the lights out with somewhere in the vicinity of fifteen three point baskets, according to CND head coach Martin Nadeau.
The tournament takeaway for the Alouettes was a 60-39 semi-final win over the Keswick Cougars, the same opponent that outscored Notre-Dame 22-6 in the final quarter at an earlier tournament in Newmarket, picking up a three point win over the locals.
Top scorers in that semis for CND were Félix Tubin and Hunter Adams with 21 and 19 points respectively. The Lo-Ellen Park Knights qualified for the final eight but were eliminated, also by Orillia, 63-39.
Coach Kyle Beers and the Lasalle Lancers made it to exactly the same stage before being sent packing by the O'Gorman Knights from Timmins, the ultra northerners on the right side of a 37-32 scoreboard.
The Lasalle juniors lost a heartbreaker in their grand finale, trimmed 59-58 by the Huntsville Hoyas after besting the Horizon Aigles 65-40 and the Adam Scott Lions 33-30 in back to back playoff encounters.
The Notre-Dame juniors outscored the Mentor College Marauders 78-44 to squeeze into the semis before falling 78-43 to Hunstville. League play resumed on Tuesday with more great action at a pair of venues.
Lo-Ellen managed to slow down the shooting show that is the Sudbury Secondary School North Stars, picking up a 62-47 win after leading 29-23 at the half and 46-35 after three quarters of play.
Callum Bruser was clearly the "go to" guy for the Knights, registering 26 points, with Abraham Soumahoro and Jared Scott next in line at 14 and eight. "He (Bruser) got to the rim and shot the ball really well," noted Lo-Ellen head coach Mac Bertrand.
Emeric Fitzpatrick and Noah Blackburn countered with 19 and 15 points respectively for the North Stars, who saw their record fall to 2-1, even with the St. Charles College Cardinals.
The Knights remained unbeaten at 2-0, joined in that department by both Lasalle (3-0) and Notre-Dame (2-0).
"We were very pleased with the compete level of the boys, especially on the defensive end," said Bertrand. "This has been a point of emphasis in practice, and the coaches were very proud of how hard they played."
The Cardinals kept pace with a 70-53 win over the St. Benedict Bears, with the offense being led by the trio of Gage Louis (23), Jacob Kruk (11) and Shane Poitras (10).
Max MacGillivray (24) and Carter Natale (16) accounted for more than 75 per cent of the Bears' scoring, as St. Benedict struggled to balance the attack. The Lancers moved to the top of the standings on Wednesday with a 55-36 victory over the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères.
Liam Lapierre (15), Ronin Makela (13) and Michael Babcock (8) were front and center for the winners, while Cedric Lessard (13) and Miguel Poulin (9) provided a one-two punch that helped keep ESMC in the game.
