Wildcats win tiebreaker

Dustin Anthony goes up for a shot. His 25 points weren't enough as the Wildcats pulled out a win in the NDA Senior Boys Basketball first place tiebreaker. Photo by Lucas Punkari

Story by Lucas Punkari

The Widdifield Wildcats clawed back from a 12-point deficit at half-time, to upend the West Ferris Trojans by a score of 62-55 on Saturday night at Widdifield - clinching first place in the NDA Senior Boys Basketball regular season standings as a result.

“The whole first half I think we under performed,” Wildcats head coach Shawn Plamondon said following the victory.

“At the half, I told that we have to attack more and that we we’re lucky to only be down by 12 because of the defense, and they responded really well to that.”

Mike Costello led the way in the victory for the Wildcats with 21 points, while Tieler Gravelle chipped in with 13 points, including a big basket with 53 seconds remaining in the game to clinch the win.

“We knew that we played like junk in the first half, but we were able to feed off the crowd in the second,” Gravelle explained regarding the turnaround following halftime.

“We just wanted to come out and prove that we can play with any team in this league and I think we did that. We got seven or eight guys on our team that can score 10 or more point every night. It’s a team sport, not a one man show, and that’s how we play.”

For the Trojans, the scene was reminiscent of one year earlier when they dropped a tiebreaker game to the Chippewa Raiders, before going on to win the NDA title.

“I thought we ran out legs in the second half but I don’t really know why,” Trojans head coach Larry Tougas said, after his team was outscored 25-11 in the final quarter.

“Our defense was definitely not as good, and Widdifield picked up their intensity level. I thought they out-hustled us in the second half and they deserve full value for the victory.”

Dustin Anthony led the Trojans with a game-high 25 points. He felt the Wildcats surge but he says he and hit teammates didn't execute at all when they needed to most.

“We wanted to slow the ball down and we didn’t do it. We didn’t run any sets, we played bad defense and it’s hard to beat a team like that when you’re not playing well.”
Late in the third quarter the Wildcats had brought the score back from the 27-15 halftime margin, to a 30-29 contest, before the Trojans went on a 10-0 run that would give them a 44-37 leaf going into the fourth.

From that point on though it would be all Wildcats, with Brayden Burke hitting a clutch three-point shot to take a 50-48 lead with two-and-a-half minutes remaining. Tom Conrad would tie the game back up a few seconds later, but a free throw soon after by Brandon McBeath and a Costello three-pointer gave Widdifield a lead they would never relinquish.


The Trojans would refuse to die as they would cut the gap to a 56-55 margin with 53 seconds to go. However, Gravelle’s late basket along with a missed three-pointer by Rob Tiller was all that the Wildcats needed to take the win, much to the delight of the Widdifield faithful.

With the victory the Wildcats now have home-court advantage for the rest of the post-season, which begins on Monday at Widdifield against the Algonquin Barons for a 7:00 tilt.

“We had four games in a row there at the end of the week so we had a chance to see the Barons,” Plamondon said.

“We know they have a couple of very good shooters that we have to shut down. Nick Bedard score 39 points on Scollard last week, so we’ll be keying on him especially. But I think it’ll be a really good series.”

As for the Trojans, they will be hosting the St. Joseph-Scollard Hall Bears at 7:30 on Monday night to begin their best-of-three series.

“Its playoff time and anything can happen, so we’ve got to take care of business,” coach Tougas said.

“We had to play somebody on Monday no matter what happened tonight, so we’re not thinking right now about that but come practice tomorrow we’ll be ready to focus on Scollard.”