Bobcats Outduel Ghosts in CBC Final

Jonas Emilsson
www.KramMag.com

According to his coach, Derek Kroetsch played the game of his life in Saturday night’s final of the prestigious Calgary Basketball Classic pre-season tournament.

The Bishop O’Byrne Bobcats’ 6′2″ forward exploded for 26 points in a dominant performance that helped lead his team to a 79-71 victory over the Bishop Grandin Ghosts.

“I’ll be honest with you, Derek Kroetsch, that is the best game I’ve ever seen him play, probably of his life – that was awesome,” said Bobcats’ coach Kurt Luttmerding. “The thing is, Coach Petrone and myself, we knew that he had that kind of game in him and he’s finally buying in to what we’ve been preaching for two years now.”

The two teams came into the final as the No. 1 (Ghosts) and No. 2 (Bobcats) ranked senior boys basketball teams in Calgary, and the game lived up to its hype as they put on an exciting finale for the fans that packed into the gym at Crescent Heights High School.

The Bobcats used their overall size advantage to mercilessly attack the rim despite the defensive presence of the Ghosts’ outstanding big men Deiter Posein and George Jackson.

The strategy worked for the Bobcats as they had one of those games where everything they threw at the hoop seemed to fall.

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The Ghosts countered with big plays from 6′4″ shooting guard LJ Hegwood, who commanded special attention from the Bobcats’ physical defenders. Hegwood finished with a hard-earned 24 points to lead the Ghosts’ offense.

But the Ghosts didn’t seem to have an answer for the fearless attack the Bobcats threw at them on this night.

Once the inside game was established the Bobcats were able to take advantage of open jumpers from outside the paint.

But the Bobcats never focused on settling for outside shots, attacking the rim was clearly their game plan and they executed it to perfection.

“We don’t want to be a perimeter team, we want to attack the hoop at all times because we have some big guys that can rebound so our game plan right off the start was to take it right at the hoop,” said Luttmerding. “Good things always happen when you attack the hoop.”

The impressive offensive performance lead to a 24-11 advantage after the first quarter, but the Ghosts found their legs in the second quarter and slowly whittled the lead down to 38-29 to close out the opening half.

The lead was still nine points in favour of the Bobcats at the end of the third quarter, setting up the potential for an exciting last 10 minutes of play.

The Ghosts cranked it up in the final quarter some more, but each time they got close the Bobcats responded with a timely bucket to give themselves some more breathing room.

With a minute an a half to play Bobcats’ forward Gio Shettler drained a three-pointer to give his team a 73-65 lead, forcing the Ghosts into a must-foul situation.

The Bobcats were clutch from the free-throw line to help them close out the game and clinch the tournament title.

As happy as Luttmerding was with his team’s offense, he also credits his team’s defensive game that kept the Ghosts’ dangerous scorers in check.

“We knew they would play hard, hard defense with the way Mike Henry Coaches,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for him as a coach.”

“Our strategy was to play hard man defense. We want that to be our identity, the Ghosts are the same so I think that will be the championship formula. You have to be able to play man defence, you can sprinkle in other defenses but that has to be the main thing.”

Luttmerding was also pleased that his team was able to hang on to a late game lead, something they weren’t able to do last weekend which ended up costing them another tournament trophy.

“We were in a final in Edmonton last Saturday where we crumbled under and obviously we learned from that,” he said. “I could not be prouder of our team, it was an awesome win for us.”

The Bobcats and the Ghosts can now start focusing on the regular season that promises to be as competitive as any season in recent memory.

But with the Calgary Basketball Classic title under their belt and strong showing in a tournament in Edmonton last weekend the Bobcats know that they’ve opened a few eyes and won’t be able to take anyone by surprise this season.

“I guess we’re on the map now,” said Luttmerding. “Up in Edmonton we surprised a lot of people and this win kind of puts a target on us but I think I’ll welcome that as motivation for us because we want to be back here in March.”

Click here to check out all the action photos from this game.