In the quarterfinals, the host Campobello Island Consolidated Vikings defeated Salisbury J.M.A. Armstrong Cougars 99-65.
The Rothesay Netherwood Riverhawks crushed the Campbellton Sugarloaf Bruins 79-59. The Bruins included Dan Mitchell, Robert Johnson, Dustin Savoie.
The Bathurst Phantoms defeated the Fredericton Devon Park Christian Eagles 58-44. The Phantoms, who fell behind by 14 in the second quarter and trailed 28-18 at the half, took their first lead with 3:08 remaining in the third period when Matthieu Nowlan scored his first basket of the game, pushing them ahead 34-33. Nowlan followed with another field goal to give Bathurst a 36-33 lead with 47 seconds left in the third, and then made two long three-pointers in the fourth quarter to help his team pull away. The victory was the Phantoms’ 25th in a row. Brad States led Bathurst with 13. Mathieu Nowland added 12, Brad Arseneau 12, along with 14 boards, and Alex Robichaud 8. The Phantoms outscored Devon Park 40-18 in the second half. After scoring only seven points in the first period, they scored 10 unanswered points in 66 seconds at the start of the third period to tie the game at 28. Greg Doucet, whose father remains hospitalized, hit a three-pointer to start the scoring run. The Phantoms had trailed Devon Park 28-18 at the half in the quarterfinals, when their coach’s wife, Cindy Doucet, visited the team in the locker room. “What happened to Alan messed our heads up a little bit, but then his wife came in and talked to us,” Chris Roy told the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. “She told us to stop being frustrated about what happened, and get out there and play as a team.” Mathieu Nowlan added that “she said the same thing Alan would have.” Beginning with a three-point shot by Doucet, Bathurst started the second half by scoring 10 points in 33 seconds and tied the game. The Phantoms ended up winning, pulling away. The morning after Doucet fell ill, the players had discussed whether they could continue on in his absence. Madison Doucet, who is 17 and headed to St. Thomas University next fall, attended the meeting and told them her father, who was lying in the critical care unit at the time, would not like it if they quit. “The boys decided to keep playing,” assistant Brad McLellan says. “Mainly, I think they were worried that if they didn’t play, they were going to have to deal with Al.” The Eagles included Sung Joo Ann, Bradley Smith, Brandon Meickle.
In the last quarterfinal, the McAdam Warriors defeated the Hillsborough Caledonia Regional Tigers 70-44 on the strength of their superior size. Matthew Carmichael and Brandon Moffitt combined for 48 points for the Warriors. Lucas Butland led Caledonia with 15. The Tigers also included Daniel Anderson, Jake Milton, Nathan Hanson, Jonathan Boutilier.
In the semis, the Campobello Island Consolidated Vikings defeated the Rothesay Netherwood Riverhawks 87-77.
In the other semi, the Bathurst Phantoms, minus head coach Alan Doucet, who suffered a heart attack at practice three days earlier, dumped the McAdam Warriors 74-62 as guard Alex Robichaud and post Brad States each scored 20. Matthew McLeod added 13 and Mathieu Nowlan 9. The Warriors led 32-30 at the half. Matthew Carmichael led McAdam with 25. Brandon Moffitt added 16 and Jacob Blair 10. “This has been an amazing season,” assistant coach Mike Parkhill told the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. “These kids don’t seem to get rattled. They have a belief that, over the course of 40 minutes, they can come back, which is a sign of maturity. You don’t often get that out of a team dominated by tenth graders.” Alex Robichaud said “I came here thinking it was going to be a rebuilding year.” Alex Robichaud, a 10th grader who transferred to Bathurst from Fredericton High, scored 20 and dished 7 assists. “We have overachieved, done what everybody else thought was impossible. We are only eight guys, but we have a lot of heart.” The Phantoms trailed 32-30 at the half but took a 54-45 lead after three quarters on the strength of a 12-2 run. The Phantoms made three three-pointers in the third period, including two by Robichaud, and finished with eight for the game. Robichaud had four three-point shots, while Chris Roy, Brad States, Matthew MacLeod and Matthieu Nowlan had one each. States, a transfer from Ecole Secondaire Npisguit, finished with 20 points, 11 boards and 6 blocks. MacLeod, a transfer from Moncton, scored 13 and nabbed 7 boards. Nowlan, a transfer from Ecole Secondaire Npisguit, scored 9. “Oh, my God, this is so thrilling,” said Nowlan, a grade 11 student who crossed town to help the Phantoms rebuild. “This is such a big win for us. This week was so hard, I can’t even describe it. But now I am so happy.” Three days earlier, during practice, assistant coach Brad McLellan performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on Doucet for more than 10 minutes as the players looked on, some crying, all in disbelief. “The last couple of days was hard on all of us,” Robichaud said. “But we were here for each other. We used it for energy, we used it for confidence, and we did it for Al.” When Doucet collapsed on the night of Feb. 10, Matthew MacLeod held his hand and talked gently to him as McLellan, the assistant coach, performed CPR for more than 10 minutes. “I thought that if any of us were in the same position, we’d like somebody to be holding our hand and talking to us,” MacLeod, 17, says quietly. “I was afraid that the worst thing might happen, and I didn’t want him to die alone. How do you walk away from that?”
In the final, the Bathurst Phantoms put the cap on the tale that captivated the province – and the nation – by defeating the Campobello Island Consolidated Vikings 82-50 as game MVP Brad Arseneau scored 25 and nabbed 25 boards. Brad Arseneau was one of four survivors of the 2008 bus crash that killed seven teammates and a teacher. As the only returning player from the 2008 unit, he chose to wear number 7 in a tribute to a deceased friend (who’d worn it) and “the Boys in Red,” seven teammates who’d died a year earlier in a tragic traffic accident. Arseneau had been seated behind former Phantoms coach Wayne Lord when the crash occurred. He had suffered broken ribs and a bruised lung and was called a miracle boy by his mother in the days after. “Most of the year, one of my primary jobs was not to score but to get rebounds because I am not always the best scorer,” Arseneau told the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. “Today, I got enough of both. The whole game, I wanted to play my best. I played my heart out.” When it ended, he climbed a ladder and snipped the net from the basket as a souvenir. Nearly an hour later, when the 6-foot-1, Grade 12 honours student emerged from the team’s dressing room with his father at his side, with a gold medal around his neck and a subtle, content smile. “With everything that happened, I am not going to say much on it,” he said. “(Before the game), everything was going through my head. I played for everyone, including myself. …. Today was probably our best game of the year.” Arseneau scored 25 points, 21 rebounds, two assists, two steals and no turnovers in 40 minutes of play. “We have come a long way as a team since the guys came together as a team at BHS. We had basketball experience but we had to work on our team work capabilities. Today, were played tremendously. Everybody had probably their best game.” The Phantoms, backed by large crowd of supporters wearing red and black, raced out to an 11-0 lead and stretched it to 27-11 at the end of the first quarter to finish the year at 35-3, including a 27-game winning streak to end the year. Part of that early offensive outburst came following one of the four blocks States made in the first 3:22. And even though the 6-5 forward was limited to 14 minutes because of foul trouble, the first quarter dominance was instrumental in the triumph. “We got off on the right foot today,” Bathurst assistant coach Brad McLellan said. “We’ve had some struggles getting behind in games and playing catch up against a lot of great teams. We have been talking all year that our best game is coming, our best game is coming. Everyone contributed today when we needed.” McLellan, Mike Parkhill and Glenn States ran the team Saturday because head coach Alan Doucet was in Montreal, still recovering from a heart attack he suffered while practicing with the team prior to the sectional playoffs 10 days ago. Arsenault’s hustle was phenomenal, said assistant Parkhill. “Wasn’t he something?” Campobello never got on track. “They came out with a tight defence and our boys got a little rattled,” Vikings coach Barry Calder said. “I am proud of these boys. I have been with them for six years and they are like my own.” The Vikings shot 29 per cent for the game and just 21 per cent on the first half. They were 10-for-27 at the free throw line. “Bathurst played a strong game,” said Jake Calder, who led the Vikings with 21 points. “They beat us on the glass, they beat us on the fast break, they beat us on defence. They won, they deserved it. … This is a tough place to play. There’s a lot going on here, with people screaming. But (the Phantoms) came out hard, fast and strong and we were kind of lollygagging, thinking they were just going to give it to us. We just didn’t play hard enough and they did. Usually we control the boards, usually we control the paint. Brad worked so hard on the offensive glass. There’s not much you can do with a guy like that. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Alex Robichaud added 12 points for Bathurst while Mathieu Nowlan added 11 and Chris Roy hit for 10 points. Ben Beney added 13 points and Cameron Parker chipped in with eight for Campobello Island. “We could not make anything in the first quarter,” Beney said. “We just came out flat.” After the game, assistant coaches Brad McLellan and Glenn States hugged as they called coach Alan Doucet in hospital in Montreal. “That was pretty special,” McLellan said. Assistant Mike Parkhill said the eight players who stepped into the lineup and kept their focus deserved all the credit. “For a young team, they are very composed,” he said. “I’ve been saying that for a while but they are really mentally tough for a young team. I am really impressed with them.” Doucet had sent the team a text message before the game, saying “if you work on your defence and stay positive, good things will happen, and so far, they have.” The Phantoms said they thinking of the seven Boys in Red – Nathan Cleland, Javier Acevedo, Codey Branch, Justin Cormier, Daniel Hains, Nicholas Kelly and Nick Quinn – and their ex-coach’s wife, Elizabeth Lord who on Jan. 12, 2008, were killed when the team was heading back to Bathurst when their van veered into the path of a transport truck on a slush-covered highway. Arseneau, Timmy Daley, coach Lord and his daughter Katie survived the crash. “We’ve been moving forward all year, but it’s always there,” said McLellan. “You never forget about it.” Robichaud said “it was amazing. After the accident we didn’t think we were going to get this far but we did … We did the impossible, pretty much. We were hungry to win. We weren’t going to take no for an answer. Brad played his best game today, with everybody watching. I’m just really proud of him.” Brad States said “it’s a huge deal, obviously, coming back from that accident.” Robichaud said “we were all overwhelmed, almost crying. Usually, Brad doesn’t show emotion. He is pretty neutral. I think it’s the first time I have really seen smile this year.” Arseneau said “my thoughts are always with them. They are with me, for sure. It is something in my heart.” The team was cheered on by relatives of the seven boys who were killed in the crash, including Krista Quinn, mother of Nick Quinn. “It’s bittersweet,” she said. Arseneau “was just amazing, absolutely amazing. I have seen Brad have good games before, but this was his best game ever. He was just there the whole game. I thought how could they not give that MVP to him. He deserved it more than anybody. ….. This is an amazing group of kids and I’m sure all the boys are up there watching. At the beginning of the season, we didn’t even think they would even have a team. And then we thought, ‘Oh poor them, they have a lot of Grade 10s and it was a horrible year last year and how are they going to get back?’ Well, they did and it just means so much.” Quinn had visited all of the boys’ graves before coming to Fredericton. “Nicholas would have been on this team. He loved every game, he loved every sport and he loved his teammates and I am sure he and the rest of the boys are smiling and looking out for the guys out there. Being here is bittersweet for me because I certainly wish my kid was out there, but this is where I need to be.” Also in attendance Saturday were the other two surviving members of last year’s Phantoms, Jordan Frenette and Tim Daley. Frenette, who sat in the front row proudly wearing his old warm up jersey, had skipped last year’s road trip to Moncton because of a cold. Now a science student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Frenette said Saturday was his happiest day in a long time. “I am just so happy and I can’t even describe it. This is the happiest I have been since the accident,” he said. “It is the same thing as the accident though; it just hasn’t sunk in yet.” Patrick Branch, who is 6-8 and an 11th grader at ESN, sat in the middle of the rooting section, tapping a snare drum. His brother, Codey, was killed that night, and Patrick plans to transfer to Bathurst. “I want to play where my brother played,” he says. “I want to live what he lived.” Arseneau’s mother, Peggy O’Neil-Arseneau, a French immersion teacher notes that “with everything he was carrying into that game, I was worried how it would affect his play, but it worked. I’m glad for him. It is not easy being Brad, the survivor. There is lots of weight and lots of guilt, and my husband and I feel guilty as parents. The only people who know how much pain we feel, are those who are feeling more pain.” But others were melancholy. Isabelle Hains, whose son Daniel was killed, said she hoped this year’s team was playing for the memory of their friends, and wished them well. But she said she would not attend the game. The last game I went to was my son’s game on that Wednesday, and that’s the game I want to keep in my memory. I don’t think I’ll be able to go watch basketball ever again.” The win invigorated Bathurst. “This time last year I wondered if it was possible for Bathurst High School and for our community ever to be happy again,” says John McLaughlin, a Bathurst resident and the district school superintendent. “At the time of the tragedy, I think a part of each of us died. Students and staff, parents and friends – nobody in this community was immune to the oppressive heaviness that seemed to paralyze the spirit. All of us worked very hard to help the healing process evolve, but we always seemed to be taking baby steps, and there were several points along the way that were debilitating and that even seemed to take us backwards. Then, out of the blue, come these two boys’ basketball teams, burning up the court with their positive energy and will to succeed. These young men and their coaches have done what nobody could have ever expected, and their accomplishments have brought encouragement to us all.” After the crash, the school’s basketball program was shut down. But the decision was made in the fall of 2008 to compete again, although at the lower AA level. Wayne Lord retired after the accident and junior varsity coach Al Doucet stepped in. “There was talk that we might not have enough players,” said assistant Mike Parkhill. The varsity was a rag-tag bunch, with only three experienced players: Arseneau, Connor McLean, who hadn’t been on the trip from Moncton, and Connor Fontaine, who had played in 2007, but quit last year. McLean and Fontaine eventually left the team. Also on hand at the start of the season were a handful of members of Doucet’s 2008 junior varsity, and four transfer students: Brad States and Mathieu Nowlan, from the French-language Ecole Secondaire Npisiguit in Bathurst, Alex Robichaud from Fredericton, and Matthew MacLeod from Moncton. A teacher at Bathurst High for 19 years and a former star player, Doucet began coaching as a teenager, served as the head of the city’s minor basketball association, and once directed five youth league teams at the same time. A former assistant to Lord, he had taken over as the junior varsity coach in 2008, and agreed to reconstruct the crippled varsity program. “Not everybody would come in here and do what Al did, taking over in circumstances like this,” Parkhill says. “He is an amazing guy. His whole focus was to concentrate on moving forward and not to dwell.” New Brunswick athletic officials felt the challenge was so daunting they suggested Bathurst drop down one class, to the AA competition level, for two years. The school accepted the offer, but for only one season. On November 26, 2008, the Phantoms lost for the third time against Ecole Secondaire Npisiguit on Nov. 26. Afterward, Doucet blasted the team, and the Phantoms never lost after that. “I called them out and challenged them,” he says. “They hadn’t had great practices that week, and it showed in that game. The other team outworked us and outplayed us, and they deserved to win. “We didn’t play to our potential, and that’s inexcusable, and our players knew it. From then on, every time I blew a whistle, everyone ran.” When Bathurst won a rematch over ESN by 19 points, and then won an eight-team tournament in Saint John, beating four AAA teams and winning six games in three days, Glenn States recalls “looking at Al, and saying, ‘You know, these guys are playing very well together. It was almost like they had played together all of their life. I started to think something very special was happening. Nothing was ever said about it, but I know everyone on the team was playing for the Boys in Red,” States says. “I know it was in the back on my son’s head, and I am sure it was the same for all of them.” On Feb. 10, three nights before his team was scheduled to play Devon Park in the quarterfinals, Doucet collapsed during practice from sudden arrhythmia death syndrome, a condition that causes a disruption in electrical impulses to the heart. “They call it the widow maker, because that’s what happens,” he says. “If you don’t have anybody there to do CPR, that’s it.” Doucet survived because Brad McLellan, an assistant coach, performed cardio- pulmonary resuscitation for more than 10 minutes until police and paramedics arrived. “I didn’t even think about it, I just reacted,” says McLellan, a former Bathurst player who drives a car with a license plate that reads, “Swish.” A father of five and 47 years old, Doucet spent five days in intensive care at the Chaleur Regional Hospital, and a week in Montreal having tests. After leading his players to the edge of the summit, unthinkable on that first day the team gathered four months earlier, he was unable to coach in their most important games. “I felt terrible for Al not being able to be there after everything he did,” says Glenn States, who coached at Ecole Secondaire Npisiguit last year and joined McLellan and Parkhill on Bathurst’s bench after Doucet fell ill. Doucet pleaded with doctors to let him out of the hospital so he could watch his team, but they refused. He has since had a defibrillator implanted to start his heart should it ever stop again. Doucet said the events were hardest on his son Greg, a starting guard for the Phantoms. “I have always tried to praise him publicly, and criticize him privately. The way he played after I collapsed shows the stuff he is made of.” Doucet later noted that “we started out in a tough situation, but we told the boys that if they worked hard and worked hard, good things would happen. Our kids did everything and more that we asked. I know how hard we pushed them, and they just kept coming back. I can’t help but be proud.” At the start of the seasons, Doucet asked each player to write down a goal for the team. Each wanted the same: to win the provincial championship. “Everything was laid out the way it happened.”
The co-bronze medalist Rothesay Netherwood Riverhawks: Costa Kolyvas; Matt Pain; Eric Lee;
The co-bronze medalist McAdam Warriors: Matt Carmichael; Brandon Moffit; Jake Blair;
The silver medalist Campobello Island Consolidated Vikings: Jake Calder; Ben Beney; Cameron Parker; Cody Morton; Stefan Mitchell; Alex Carroll; Daniel van Tassell; Dustin Calder; Tyler Howett; coach Barry Calder; assistant Justin Searles; assistant Tyler Anthony; manager Katie Beth Searles;
The gold medalist Bathurst Phantoms: Brad Arseneau; Alex Robichaud; Brad States; Matthew McLeod; Mathieu Nowlan; Chris Roy; Greg Doucet; Kyle Lanteigne; coach Alan Doucet; assistant Mike Parkhill; assistant Glenn States; assistant Brad McLellan;