The Lasalle Lancers senior boys basketball team have certainly won the Golden Gator Basketball Tournament in prior years.
This time around, however, it wasn't nearly as much of a sure thing.
With the SDSSAA loop displaying far more parity than in the past, especially at the top end of the standings, many were looking forward to seeing how things would unfold at the 2017 version of the showcase that is staged, every December, by the folks at Bishop A Carter Catholic Secondary School.
Holding a 28-21 lead over the Sudbury Secondary North Stars at half-time of the gold medal encounter, the Lancers would see their advantage shrink to just a single basket, but would never relinquish it through the final sixteen minutes of play, registering a 63-52 victory in the end.
Michael Babcock paced the winners with 17 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter, with Eric Senechal (14) and Andrew Middleton (12) also hitting double digits. Emeric Fitzpatrick and Noah Blackburn countered with 21 and 12 points respectively for the Stars.
"They have a lot of shooters, a lot of really good shooters," said Middleton of the silver medal winning side. "Their play style is a bit different, they're a shoot-first team. We really had to push into them."
A grade 10 transfer student from St. Charles College, Middleton suggested there is at least one area of the court where he sees a difference with the Lancer philosophy of basketball.
"We really push the defensive side here, we really like to lock down our opponents," he said.
"I find that we have a lot of speed, good court mentality. We can really see the floor. We are always looking for turnovers, to move it quickly to the fast breaks. Good defense is just working as hard as you can, and stay between your man and the basket."
The Lancers and North Stars are certainly not strangers, having met in the city final last February.
"They're a track team, they like to run, they like that up-tempo," said Lasalle head coach Kyle Beers.
"We like that as well, because it's such a fun style to play, to be a part of. It's always great playing these guys."
With feature guard Noah LaPierre having graduated, now a member of the Brock Badgers, Beers had prepared his team for change.
"We were a lot more methodical in the years before Noah, and then we had Noah for five years and we were able to sit back and let things unfold," he said. "Now I think we're going back to more of a systems approach that involves all twelve guys."
"Not everybody is going to score 20 points for us," Beers said. "We're going to have a bunch of guys who can score seven to eight, and those teams are hard to stop, I think."
All of that being said, he still considers his team very much in the mix to capture a fifth straight SDSSAA title in the new year.
"We are very young, a lot of tens and elevens, only two grade twelves," said Beers. "So we weren't really sure what to expect. We knew there would be some ups and downs. When we're not thinking about our game plan and it gets away from us, our youth shows and we create some opportunities for the other team. But I really think we can be better than last year's team. Defensively, we're much better than last year, just with the length and personnel that we have. We don't even have half of our defensive sets in yet."
Lasalle made it a clean sweep by also walking off with the junior banner, a result of the Lancers 65-30 triumph over the Horizon Aigles. Topping the offensive parade for the champions were Morgan Byers (21), Nick Burke (20) and Anthony Levesque (14).
Meanwhile, at the Gold Cup in Timmins, the host Timmins High & Vocational School Blues soared easily above the competition, bouncing the St Mary's Knights from Sault Ste Marie 80-42 in the senior final.
The Collège Notre Dame Alouettes, still unbeaten in Sudbury league play along with both Lo-Ellen and Lasalle, fell by the wayside in the semis, beaten by six points by the Knights. The Alouettes juniors lost to Timmins High in the championship final, knocked off in overtime.
