Basketball Playoffs - Thursday, March 14, 2013 23:43 - 0 Comments

4A Provincial Tournament Underway

Jonas Emilsson www.KramMag.com The No. 1-ranked LCI Rams easily rolled through their opening round game against the Westwood Trojans on Thursday night to kick off the 2012 4A Alberta provincial basketball tournament. After a convincing 104-41 over the Trojans, LCI now move on to face Edmonton’s No. 8 –ranked Archbishop O’Leary tomorrow morning. Lop-sided victories in tournaments like this aren’t uncommon, but neither are upsets.  Despite the disparity in pre-tourney rankings the Rams are happy to escape the opening round with a win to keep their ultimate goal of snagging a 4A championship banner. “We got what we wanted out of it,” said Rams’ head coach Cale Rasmussen.  “We wanted to win and we know that to reach our goal and to win a banner here we have to win four games in three days.” “To win four games in three days you have to make sure that in that first game, if you’re fortunate enough to get a higher seed, that you win and get out of there and no one gets hurt.” Things will only get tougher as the tournament rolls along, but Rasmussen feels that his team has as good a chance as any to keep moving along the winner’s side of the bracket. “We’ve seen the best in Calgary and we’ve seen the best in Edmonton and we can beat any of those teams, but we could also lose to any of those teams,” said Rasmussen.  “I think there’s probably four or five teams in this tournament that could win the whole thing.” The Rams will face Archbishop O’Leary at 8:30am at Bishop Grandin High School on Friday morning. [caption id="attachment_2450" align="alignleft" width="600"] Photo by Jonas Emilsson[/caption]                           Archbishop O’Leary Impress in their Tournament Opener Number eight-ranked Archbishop O’Leary Spartans from Edmonton will move on to face the No.1 ranked LCI Rams in round two of the 4A Alberta provincial basketball tournament after a solid 91-65 win over No. 9 –ranked Notre Dame Pride on Thursday night. Despite playing in the Pride’s home gym in front of a hostile crowd the Spartans managed to stick to their game plan to come away with a convincing win. “I thought the atmosphere was incredible and we kind of fed off their home crowd a bit,” said Spartans’ head coach Ray Filice.  “We knew it was going to be an intense environment but our guys have been through situations like that probably a dozen times this year so it really helped us fight through that game.” The intensity of the fans and the Pride players was at it’s highest early in the third quarter after forward Kingsley Robert-Ezenta threw down two monstrous dunks to bring his to within five points of tying the game. “I thought Notre Dame played us very, very tough,” said Filice.  “We had to make a few adjustments, especially on number 12 (Robert-Ezenta), and we switched to a box a one which was successful for us.” The Spartans re-gained controlled by going back to their high pressure defense that had been so successful during the opening half. “That’s been our bread and butter this year,” said Filice.  “We don’t have 6’7”-6’8” guys inside so we have to rely on changing defenses and play in your face type of defenses. “ [caption id="attachment_2449" align="alignleft" width="600"] Photo by Jonas Emilsson[/caption]                            More final scores from Thursday night opening night action: GIRLS Sir Winston Churchill  10  Lloydminster  10 Spruce Grove  74  St. Mary’s  64 Cardston   64             Lindsay Thurber  43 Centennial  51  Grande Prairie  43 Raymond  72            Archbishop O’Leary  52 Bishop O’Byrne  48            Archbishop Jordan  41 Chinook  60  George McDougall  37 William Aberhart  73  Harry Ainlay  53 BOYS Lethbridge Collegiate  104  Westwood  41 Archbishop O’Leary  91  Notre Dame  65 St. Mary’s  97  Harry Ainlay  79 Bishop Grandin  77  Foothills  65 Bishop O’Byrne  83  Hunting Hills  80 St. Francis Xavier  73   Winston Churchill  47 Sir Winston Churchill  76  Jasper Place  65 Cardston  102  Grande Prairie 53