High School Basketball
Knights down Tigers to win junior title at
Bill Wren Tournament
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

The St. Peter Knights Sean Decloux goes up for a lay-up aganist the St. Matthew Tigers during the junior division final at the Bill Wren Invitational Tournament on Sunday. Fred Sherwin/Photo

Last year, the St. Peter Knights junior boys basketball team finished in a tie for first place in the Eastern Conference despite having a lineup made up almost entirely of Grade 9s.

After suffering a disappointing first round exit at the hands of the eventual city champions, the Hillcrest Hawks, the Knights are back with their entire lineup pretty well intact and a common goal to go all the way to the top..

On Sunday, they sent a clear message to their competition that the road to this year's city championship will run through St. Peter High School.

After winning all four of their round robin games at the Bill Wren Invitational Tournament, they blasted past an undermanned Mother Teresa team in the semi-finals before knocking off the host St. Matthew Tigers in the gold medal game without barely breaking a sweat.

The Tigers qualified for the final by beating the Louis-Riel Rebelles 61-55 in Sunday's other semi-final after they ran the table in Pool A.

Both teams came out flat in the championship game and after the first quarter the score was tied 8-8.

In the race to get untracked, it was the Knights who shook off the cobwebs first and by midway through the second quarter they were draining baskets with regularity. The Tigers did their best to keep up with their east end rivals, but by the end of the first half the Knights had built up a commanding nine point lead after pouring in 21 points in the second quarter.

Coming out of the intermission, St. Matt's was determined to get back into the game, but their inability to break St. Pete's press made a bad situation even worse as the Knights forced the Tigers to repeatedly turn the ball over. By the end of the third quarter the Knights had extended their lead to 17 points.

As the fourth quarter got underway, the Knights continued to press the Tigers and easily cruised to a 57-42 win.

After the game, St. Matt's head coach Chris Wakefield heaped a ton of credit on the Knights while admitting that his own team is still a work in progress.

"That's a very experienced team. They did things to us that we usually do to other teams and I think our guys just got frustrated out there. We only had a couple of practices coming into this tournament and it showed. We didn't handle adversity well," said Wakefield.

Not surprisingly, Knights head coach Mark McKay was feeling pretty good about where his team is on the eve of the high school basketball season which gets underway this week.

"I'm very pleased," said McKay. "Our full court defense was pretty good. We showed a lot of teamwork and unselfish basketball. Our expectations are very high last year we finished tied for first place with Louis-Riel with a team full of Grade 9s. They edged us out because they had a lower points against, but this year we're lokking to go all the way."

The Knights were led by Daniel Nwosu's 17 points. Jeremy Azangi-Mbutu added 15 and Brenden F. scored 12. Keonte Mouaga was the game high scorer for the Tigers with 18 points.

(Posted 6:30 p.m., Nov. 30)

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