Sure, they might have had a couple of comfortable wins over the Peacock Toilers during the regular season, but throw any two teams into the rock-concert-loud environment in Sask Polytech and interesting things can happen very quickly.
Like a two-point Toilers lead after the first quarter. Or a one-point Peacock lead eight minutes into the third.
But like the 10-time city champion Peacock girls did only a couple hours earlier, the Cyclones found a way to get things done.
With Toilers defensive standout Devin Baumann sitting with four fouls midway through the third quarter, Central put together a 16-3 run to build a 61-38 and would never look back on their way to a 78-63 victory.
“This is a tough place to play, it’s loud, you can’t talk to each other and we were a little anxious I thought, maybe not quite ourselves, but they played well,” said Central head coach Ryan Boughen. “That’s what happens in a game like this and an environment like this.”
In the end, the experience of having won four championships – even with only three Grade 12s in their line-up – helped make the difference. Especially when dealing with provincial team member Dylan Boughen being sidelined with a broken angle.
“We needed some guys to step up and they did,” coach Boughen said. “Like we were saying to the guys, we’re hanging on to something we haven’t achieved yet, we’re playing more like we’re worried about losing instead of playing our best basketball.”
Veterans like Grade 12 forward Ewan Johnson took that message to heart. He’d finish the contest with 21 points to lead all scorers, while Jake McLean added 17 and Mohamed Jabateh 16.
“We started playing our own game, in the first half we were playing slow and scared, but in the second half we played our own game and played hard and it turned out well,” Johnson said. “It’s a pretty good accomplishment for our school and program, even though we lost seven Grade 12s from last year we were still able to come back and win this.”
Toilers head coach Troy Setter was proud of his team’s performance, especially to throw a scare into a Central team that hadn’t lost in league play all season.
“I love the way the guys played, they played hard,” he said. “Central is a good, strong team, and we showed we can play with them. Obviously we came in wanting and expecting to win, but it was a little stretch there [that made the difference].”
Losing Baumann – who finished the game with 16 points despite sitting the majority of the third – certainly didn’t help matters.
“He’s a big part of our game, and everybody knows that, so when he has to sit for eight minutes, they were able to go on a run and we weren’t able to close that gap back up,” Setter said.
Tata Mugisha added 13 points for the Toilers.
The contest could be the final game of the season pending ongoing Saskatchewan Teacher’s Federation job action.
