It was a weekend of what could have been for the Chatelech Eagles.
After winning their first game 67-36 over the Rockridge Ravens last Friday night at the Cougar Classic senior boys basketball tournament in Gibsons, the Eagles looked poised to head to the championship final. But a lesson of taking an opponent too lightly bit the Eagles in a 66-64 overtime loss to the eventual champion, Howe Sound Sounders.
"We didn't take them [Howe Sound] too seriously, and I'm as much to blame as anyone," said a disappointed Eagles' head coach Sean Smith during halftime of the Eagles 85-42 blow out of Pemberton in the third/fourth place game. "We saw Howe Sound at an earlier tournament and we didn't think they were that good. We went in thinking we were going to beat them and just played a lacklustre first quarter."
Smith said the Eagles battled back and saw the Sounders win the game on a Hail Mary shot in overtime, but the slow start clearly proved to be the Eagles undoing.
"You have to give them credit. I figure we had a more skilled team, but they played better as a team," said Smith. "We're disappointed and it's a lesson learned. We can't take anyone for granted. We have to play our best. When you do, good things happen, and when you don't, any team can beat us."
The Eagles produced a balanced scoring attack in their win over the Ravens with Justin Hickey scoring 15, Kyle Hamilton with 10, Avery Payne with nine and Kurtis Fernandez and Connor Weatherston each scoring eight. Against the Sounders, Connor poured in 21, while Justin had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Kurtis also chipped in with 12 points. High man in the Pemberton win was Avery with 22 points, followed by 10 for Justin.
The Cougars finished fifth overall after beating the Ravens 63-38 Saturday afternoon. Elphi opened the tournament with a 61-56 loss to St. John's who lost 69-66 to the Sounders in Saturday's championship final. The opening loss dropped the Cougars into the consolation side of the draw, which meant they could finish no higher than fifth. In their second game, the Cougars defeated Sentinel 59-32 Friday night.
Mackie Gregory was high man for the Cougars in all three games with 31 points against St. John's, 20 against Sentinel and 19 against the Ravens. Jordan Mancilla scored 10 against St. John's, Patrick Ellison chipped in 13 against Sentinel, while Colin McGillivry added 10 against the Ravens.
Cougars' head coach Mike Sopow said he saw much improvement in his squad from the one that took the court before Christmas and was generally pleased with the weekends' effort.
"The hustle was there against St. John's; we just couldn't get enough points on the board," Sopow said. "Right now the overall intensity and hustle has picked up, but defensively we have to be better, especially missing Jason [Chung], because he puts up a lot of points, so we have to be a more defensive team. Against Sentinel we played well. We had some defensive lapses, but we played much better and we played well against Rockridge. We came out hungry and played hard in both games, so that's good to see."
Sopow credited both Jordan and Mackie for their scoring touch and Brendan Barnum for his improved play.
"The goal is to keep on improving and do the small things we were doing at the beginning of the season that were allowing us to win things like coming off screens tight, blocking guys out the little things that don't show up on the stats sheet that we need to do to win," he said. "We have a couple of tournaments coming up in Hope and Sentinel and those will be our first away tournaments. This will be a good time for the team to gel together and bring us closer together as a unit."
