Sports

Westside juniors compete for District 4 basketball championships

March 2, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Westside Secondary School Thunder junior boys basketball team went to the District 4 championship but lost in the final game.

The Thunder had a good season finishing in second place in the District standings, averaging 56 points per game.

Westside eliminated Erin District High School in the semi-final round to earn the right to go to the championship.

The final game pitted the Thunder against the first-place Centre Dufferin District High School (CDDHS) Royals, with the final game taking place in Shelburne on Wednesday, Feb. 15.

CDDHS took an early lead finishing the first quarter ahead 15-10.

The Thunder fought back in the second quarter and took over the lead, but the Royals put on the pressure and were back on top 27-23 at the half.

It was a tough third quarter for Westside when the Shelburne team started hitting the basket and went ahead by 12 points.

The game ended with a 54-38 Royals win.

The Thunder played solid games all season, and coach Drew Barfoot said the fact that most players are all in grade nine bodes well for an even stronger team next year.

“I though we played well. That third quarter we just started missing, where in the first two quarters we were hitting those two-point jump shots and they were going in,” Drew said after the game. “In the third we missed a couple in a row, and when you miss a couple in a row with a team like that, they capitalize on it and they go down to score. At the end of the day I thought we played well. We’ll limit some of our mistakes for next year and we’ll be right back in it. We have a lot of grade nines. When you look at our team, it’s mostly grade nines and two grade tens. For a bunch of grade nines to come in and play high school basketball it means a lot for who they are as players and hopefully we can grow them for another year. I said to the guys after the game, ‘you’re going to see those same guys for the next four years and it’s going to be us and them in the finals for the next four years. If we get some good basketball players from our feeder schools, and if we get another good batch of grade nines next year, this junior team will be really good.”

The Centre Dufferin team will now go on to compete at the regional level in CWOSSA.

The CWOSSA junior basketball tournament will take place at Westside Secondary School on Friday, Feb. 24.


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