A special tournament had a sterling finish to it for the Knights.
Holy Trinity Academy overpowered the competition at an event it has a habit of winning, securing the title at the 40th annual Father Troy Tournament at Edmonton’s St. Joseph School.
“This tournament for us is really about the tradition of it,” said Knights head coach Sam Aiello. “We’ve been going now for our 18th year and it was just a really good weekend for our kids.
“There’s just so much more to the tournament than the basketball games, there’s a lot of other stuff happening.”
The 16-team senior boys competition with Catholic schools from across the province, featured guest speaker Jordan Baker, coach of the CEBL’s Edmonton Stingers, the teams all celebrating mass and a sparkling prize going to the tournament MVP – Knights guard Lucas Barlow.
“They get a credit to Jostens where they get to design their own tournament ring,” Aiello said.
On the court, HTA dispatched Grande Prairie’s St. Joseph Celtics 93-61 with Barlow pouring in 30 points, 10 assists and six boards along with Xavier Krueger’s 18 points, 13 rebounds effort.
The Knights, ranked 9th at the 4A level, scored 67 first-half points en route to a 118-73 triumph over the host St. Joseph with Barlow notching 22 points, 10 assists, Krueger posting 20 rebounds with Gavin Speers posting nine points, nine rebounds.
“That was such a fast-paced game both ways,” Aiello said. “For us, a lot of it was fast-break where we beat them down the court, beat them in transition.”
In the final, HTA shared the offensive load in an 85-47 romp over Bishop Carroll.
Ben Gutek (14), Charlie Humphries (13), Owen Vanin (12) and Barlow (11) all posted above double-digits in scoring with HTA owning a 52-26 edge in rebounding.
Vanin was a tournament all-star for the Knights.
Closer to home, the Foothills Falcons senior boys and girls competed at Calgary’s Western Canada Redhawk Invitational Tournament.
The Foothills girls brought home the bronze, downing Jasper Place 64-53 in the third-place final.
Point guard Dior Sellars was the team’s tournament all-star.
The Falcons boys won the consolation title at Western after scoring a come-from-behind 79-73 win over the L.C.I. Rams. Falcons post Van Kerrison was tournament all-star.
The Falcons and Knights renew acquaintances on Tuesday night for the second of two double-headers featuring both senior teams. The action gets underway at Foothills Composite with the girls tipping off at 5:30 p.m. and the boys at 7:15 p.m.
