Favourites win their NDA basketball semifinal openers

The West Ferris Trojans cruised to an easy 80-29 victory Monday night over the Northern Braves in the opening game of the NDA Senior Boys Basketball semifinals.

Meantime, at Chippewa last year’s finalists defeated the Algonquin Barons 59-41.

The Trojans and Raiders can clinch their best-of-three series' with victories on Wednesday.

The Trojans are coming off another unbeaten season and although West Ferris still needs one more win to move on, it’s still very hard for the Trojans not to look forward to facing the Chippewa Raiders in the 2006 NDA final.

Still Trojans head coach Larry Tougas is confident his team can repeat as NDA champions.

“With the talent we had coming back, it was something we were expecting but you know the playoffs are a different story and I think we are going to have to crank it up again because Chippewa improving and we are expecting them to be our chief competition,” Tougas said in an interview at the end of the regular season.