In the quarterfinals, the Fredericton Leo Hayes Nashwaaksis Y’s Lions defeated Moncton Purple Knights 78-75 in overtime. Jason Daniels led the Lions with 29. Moncton coach Andrew MacPherson was chosen New Brunswick boy’s coach of the year. The Knights also included Nick Leblanc, Jordan Bedard.
The Fredericton Black Kats defeated the Moncton Harrison Trimble Trojans 65-52 as Nathan Mazurkiewcz scored 16 and Calvin LeBlanc 15. The Trojans included David Fox.
The Woodstock Thunder defeated the Moncton Bernice MacNaughton Highlanders 95-72.
In the last quarterfinal, the Dalhousie Regional Condors defeated the Bristol Carleton North Stars 85-68. The North Stars included Wade Lawrence, Kyle Fenske, Andrew McInnis.
In the semis, the Fredericton Black Kats defeated the Fredericton Leo Hayes Nashwaaksis Y’s Lions 80-70. Nathan Mazurkiewcz led Fredericton with 29. Calvin LeBlanc added 13 and Cameron Clark 12. The Kats took a 37-35 lead at the half and hung on for the win. Jason Daniels led the Lions with 24. Brett Hughes added 22.
In the other semi, the Woodstock Thunder nipped Dalhousie Regional Condors 76-73 in overtime. The teams were tied at 71 at the end of regulation. The Condors moved up to Division AAA play on the season.
In the final, the Fredericton Black Kats edged the Woodstock Thunder 61-59. Fredericton trailed throughout but went on a late run in the fourth quarter to pull out the win. Game MVP Calvin LeBlanc netted 17 points and grabbed 19 rebounds to lead the Black Kats. Nathan Mazurkiewcz added 16 and Cameron Clark 10. Jordan Irvine paced Woodstock with 19 while Ross Kinney added 14, Scott Anderson 13 and Joel Everett 8. Woodstock trailed 17-16 after the first quarter but led 36-30 at the half and 48-40 with 10 minutes remaining. Will Thornton and the Thunder held Fredericton to only a pair of three-pointers, while Woodstock had six of their own on offense. A.J. Durling, who’s been bothered by a bad back for three weeks, saw a loose ball get through two pairs of legs and land at his feet. He picked the ball up and put it in with 30 seconds left to give FHS a 61-59 lead. The score stood when Ross Kinney’s jumper rattled off the rim with six seconds left, enabling the Black Kats to capture the title. “That was just luck,” said Durling, whose back woes limited him to 24 minutes and six points. “We tried to get an inside touch and the ball just came through the crowd. I just picked it up and made a big bucket, I guess.” Woodstock had led for much of the game before the Black Cats clawed their way back from a 48-40 deficit in the third to go ahead 59-54 with less than four minutes on the clock. The Thunder countered and knotted the score at 59 on a foul shot by Ross Kinney with about a minute remaining. Fredericton then moved back on offense and held the ball and lost it, only to have Durling get it back for a finger-roll. “That will be one of the biggest baskets I will ever score,” Durling said. “Woodstock played a great game today. They were ahead, but we knew we could come back because we have confidence in what we can do and that’s what we did. “I saw the ball in my hands, and then it was in the net,” he said just moments after the final buzzer. “It was just luck, but we’ll take it.” Leblanc said the Thunder were a formidable foe. “They’re a 100 per cent bunch of awesome guys. However, we scored when we had to and kept our focus.” Woodstock’s cause was hurt when all-star Joel Everett was lost because of knee injury. Jordan Irvine said “when Joel went down, it was a big loss. We did everything we could do to win, but we came up a little short. It was our first time here as a AAA school, but we’ll be back. We kept with them for the whole game, just like we did in the five other games we played against them all year.” Woodstock coach Scott Jones said “we started the year with one goal in mind, and that was to get back to the Aitken Centre. Fredericton played us tough all year, like they did in this game. My players gave it their all today. They showed a lot of heart and character, like they did all season. When Joel went down, though, that was a big loss for us because, for us to beat Fredericton, we have to have all our starters and key players. Joel’s an all-star and went he went down it was tough for all of us. They’re a great team, without a doubt. It could have went either way today. We’ll be back in the hunt next year, though. We will have several returning players, plus those coming up from junior varsity. We’ll be back. Remember, this is our first trip here as a AAA squad.” After falling behind 17-7 eight minutes in, the Thunder used a 15-0 run to take a 22-17 lead, stretching it to 36-30 at the intermission. The game’s turning point came with 3:42 left in the third quarter. Woodstock senior all-star guard Joel Everett, Mr. Poise on the point, collided at half-court with Kats’ Stefan Bielecki and landed flush on his left knee. Everett had to be helped off the court, his brilliant high school career coming to an untimely end. “It wasn’t a dirty play or anything like that,” Kats coach Phil Wright said. “All coaches have to confront those (injuries) and kids have to rise up. When you lose arguably your best player, I don’t care who you are, it has to hurt,” Thunder coach Scott Jones said. “We had a lot of guys step up and play positions that they’re maybe not as comfortable with and a lot more minutes than they’re used to. I’m not saying we would have won with or without Joel, but it certainly changes the whole dimension of our team.”
Woodstock led 43-38 at the time and was still ahead 53-45 with 8:10 remaining, but FHS scored eight unanswered points in 80 seconds to pull even at 53-all. Durling said “Woodstock’s an amazing team and they played an amazing game. But I figured as long as we kept working as hard as we were, we were going to get our bounces.” Calvin LeBlanc scored back-to-back baskets, then speedy guard Nathan Mazurkiewicz turned a steal into two of his 16 points to cap a 14-0 run. Just like that it was 59-53 FHS with three minutes remaining. “It took a lot of heart to get ourselves back in the game,” LeBlanc said. “Losing Joel Everett hurt them. He’s a big three-point shooter and a big part of their team, but I think it still would have been really close with him on the court.” Even without him, the Thunder weren’t going anywhere. Scott Anderson hit one free throw and Jordan Irvine made both to shave the deficit to 59-56 with 1:42 left. Kinney drained a jumper 30 seconds later, then swished his second free throw to tie it 59-59 with 55.7 seconds to go, setting the stage for Durling’s dramatics. “We gave up too many second-chance points,” Jones said. “It was just a scramble, they happened to come up with the ball and nobody was there.” Irvine said “this is our first year at the AAA level and I’m proud of how well we did. We’re big rivals with FHS, for sure, and hopefully we’ll get another crack at them next year. We only lose two starters, so I like our chances. I’m pretty sure we’ll see them again next year. Jones said “we were hitting them all early. But we couldn’t get anything to fall in the fourth quarter. We showed a lot of heart and our guys have a lot of character. We’re a good team, we’re a confident team and we have lots of experience here. It just happened that today they were two points better than us.” Kats coach Phil Wright said “I thought we had the best team all year and we proved it tonight – but not by much. A.J. only practiced once all week, and not even a full practice, so it was so nice to see him end his career with that basket.”
The co-bronze medalist Dalhousie Regional Condors: Cory Arsenault; Robby Daley; Ryan Smith; Michael Glencross; Cory Arsenault; Jordan Lapointe; coach Neil Smith
The co-bronze medalist Fredericton Leo Hayes Nashwaaksis Y’s Lions: Jason Daniels; Brett Hughes;
The silver medalist Woodstock Thunder: James Tait; Justin Stairs; Ross Kinney; Joel Everett; Jordan Irvine; Scott Anderson; Alex Stocek; Josh Grey; Kyle Parkinson; Billy Delong; Jared Demerchant; Will Thornton; Phil Russell; coach Scott Jones; assistant Luke Flemming
The gold medalist Fredericton Black Kats: Jeff Madsen; Nathan Mazurkiewcz; Matt Rioux; Jeff O’Donnell; A.J. Durling; Gibson Horsman; Etienne Hache; Nik Mijatovic; Cameron Clark; Stefan Bielecki; Lloyd Arsenault; Calvin Leblanc; John Morse; coach Phil Wright; assistant Larry Wisniewski; assistant Mike Wright; assistant Mike King