The Central Cyclones pretty much knew this was going to happen.
It was just a matter of going out, playing the game the way they could and a provincial championship was almost certainly in the cards.
Not only had they put together one of the best high school boys basketball seasons in the city’s history, they came into the Hoopla 4A boys tournament playing some of their best games of the season.
That showed in the semifinal, a commanding 88-62 victory over North Battleford John Paul II.
And it showed in the championship final against the Weyburn Eagles, as the Cyclones roared out to a 20-point lead before the second quarter was even half over, led 47-31 at halftime and never looked back on their way to a 98-59 victory at Centennial Collegiate in Saskatoon.
“It’s just awesome,” said Central head coach Ryan Boughen. “Our kids played so well and we’re so excited for them, it’s just a fitting way for it to end. It’s super exciting.”
The Cyclones’ evolution into a nigh-unstoppable machine was years in the making, with the core of seven Grade 12s having come close as possible to provincial titles in the past, losing the final the last two years to the very same Eagles.
There was no leaving anything to chance this time around.
“It was a good game at the start, we’ve had some slow starts this season and we were working on that, and we thought we had a good game plan, which was just be ourselves,” Boughen explained. “We felt we had an advantage inside with Jaxson Brownell so we tried to get the ball in to him and that went well for us. Then we were able to get some stops and it just kept on going the way we wanted it to.”
That meant when Brownell wasn’t dominating the paint, their outside shooters were bringing the rain. Combine that with their hyper-aggressive defensive game and a slew of stops in the early going, and the writing was on the wall right quick.
“As a coach you’re always searching for a perfect game, and we thought the game before we could have played a little better in the second half.” Boughen said. “But today I couldn’t be happier with the way it ended and how the guys played from start to finish. If that’s the definition of perfect, then for sure, that’s a perfect game.”
Brownell led all scorers with 20 points.
His presence was the perfect augmentation to Central’s outside game all season, led by the likes of free-shooting Grade 12 guards Kyle Boughen and Riley Seaborn. Fellow seniors Fharis Ebet, Ethan Johnson, Hardil Khubber and Crozier Holmes all had standout games of their own at different times.
That’s precisely why the Cyclones were, quite simply, just that darn good.
“They’re incredible,” Boughen said of his Grade 12 core. “Some of these kids on different teams are the star of that team and score 30 points a game. With our team, they’re scoring 15 points, and there’s a whole bunch of them scoring 15 points. All year we played like that and I think that was the big difference for us.
“There’s seven of them graduating and they’re seven hard kids to replace because they are such good players. But they’ve really set the tone and tempo for the next kids coming up and what it means to be a teammate, to be unselfish and share the ball.”
The championship is the first for the Cyclones boys team since 2001, when a similar hot-shooting squad led by future university standout Kyle Grant and the inside presence of Chad Leugner won the title at home in Moose Jaw.
“That year was probably one of the best teams I’ve every coached and that year, those kids beat Knoll and Knoll went on to win the 5A championship,” Boughen said. “This year, I said to these guys, ‘you’re better, but you have to win this game’. This year we beat both Leboldus and Holy Cross, who are playing in the 5A final, so this was a pretty legit squad….They’re just a great group of kids and they played so well, I couldn’t be prouder.”
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The Peacock Toilers might not have been playing for gold in the 4A girls division, but they’re coming home with a medal just the same.
Grade 12 guard Piper Ingalls made sure that would be the case.
In her final contest as the Toilers’ offensive leader, Ingalls put up 38 points as Peacock defeated Notre Dame 70-53 in the bronze medal game.
The Toilers led 31-21 at half.
