Pearson Captures Sr. Boys Div II Title

Jonas Emilsson
www.KramMag.com

Coming in to Saturday night’s senior boy’s division two final coach Bill Mitchell knew he would need big games from Ajay Sihota and Vishal Banipal.

On queue, the two skilled ballers, along with the rest of Lester B. Pearson Patriots players delivered perhaps their best game of the year to capture the city title with a 95-88 victory over the Bowness Trojans.

“Vishal is a warrior,” said Patriots’ head coach Bill Mitchell. He’s a real competitor and every big game that I’ve coached him in the last two years he’s come up big.

“Ajay is a gunner, he has that shot,” continued Mitchell. “He can shoot you out of a game, but he can also win it.”

The two teams had already faced off twice during the regular season, and both times the Trojans came away with victories. Third time was not the charm however.

“They beat us twice in the season so we were pretty ready,” said Patriot’s had coach Bill Mitchell. “Saying that, it was a really hard-fought game.”

The turning point of the game was the entire third quarter, where the Patriots put 33 points on the board compared to the Trojans’ 17 points.

The hot hand of Sihota was catalyst for big offensive outpouring through the second half.

Eighteen of his 30 points came in the third quarter alone, with have those coming from the same corner of the court just outside the three-point line.

Banipal scored a game-high 31 points.

The Trojans were led by Jalen Gardener who scored 27 points.

Coming out of the half-time break leading 40-39, the Patriots went on an offensive tear to go up 73-56 by the end of the third quarter.

“The third quarter was just them not executing and us executing,” said Mitchell. “We got stops, they didn’t and then we scored. Then they made a bit of run in the fourth quarter. The game goes in ebbs and flows and we just happened to be ahead at the end of the game.”

To the Trojans’ credit, they put together a late-game rally and brought the score to within five at 90-85 with just over a minute to play.

But two clutch free-throws by Banipal in the final seconds sealed Pthe championship for the Patriots.