HSC U13 Boys’ Basketball Team wins CAIS U13 National Tournament



Congratulations to the U13 Boys’ Basketball team winners of this year’s CAIS U13 National Basketball Tournament held at Strathcona Tweesdmuir School near Calgary Alberta. This is an annual tournament involving 16 schools from across the country for students at the Grade 7 level in the Canadian Association of Independent Schools.

There were three days of intense basketball competition beginning on Thursday, February 5, 2009. HSC won all three of their games on the first day beating Meadowridge School (BC), The York School (ON) and Southridge School (BC). This enabled our team to finish first in their pool of 4 teams, which meant we then entered the Championship divisions.

On Friday, February 6th, the competition was more challenging. Our team faced some worthy opponents including: St. Andrew's College (ON), Crescent School (ON) and St. John’s Ravenscourt (Winnipeg). Our only loss that day was a nail-biting close game that went into overtime with St. John’s - we lost by 2 points but we still managed to advance to the final four on Saturday morning.

That was when our boys came up with their best games of the tournament. We beat Ashbury College (ON) in the semi-final by about 6 points in an excellent effort propelling us into the Championship final against the previously unbeaten St.George's School (BC).They happened to defeat us in the final game last year.

The boys pulled ahead right from the start and despite some late stage rallies from St. George’s we hung in there to defeat them by 5 points. It was without a doubt the most exciting game of the tournament. Many of the other teams were heard cheering on our boys. It was a terrific way to end what was a very hectic few days for the team, and was an event that these boys will long remember.

Congratulations to:  Andre Sziilvassy (#33), Cameron McMillan (#30), Scott Waters (#51), Clay Weir (#45), Ben Pascoe (#32), Noah Spencer (#40), Andrew Lagrotteria (#20), Josh Bishop (#44), Doug Lazier (#42), Isaac Fisher-Jhirad (#31), Alex McLeod (#35), Rishi Goel (#41) and coaches Jeff Bera and Mike Steel.