Jonas Emilsson
www.KramMag.com

Coming into Saturday night’s senior boys’ Div I final, Western Canada’s Redmen forward Nebojsa Kuljic was a nervous wreck.

He felt anxious, sick to his stomach and excited all at the same time.

“It was funny,” said Redmen’s head coach Steve Wibe. “He was so nervous, and we told him to trust his teammates, and I think he took confidence in his teammates and that allowed him to play his game.

How exactly did he respond?

Only by putting together his best game of the season, maybe of his life.

The 6’4” guard found a way to channel his pre-game emotions and ended up exploding for 20 first-half points, including six three pointers.

“I was about to puke, honestly,” said Kuljic with a laugh. “Like five times in the shoot-around before the game I grabbed my gut, grabbed my throat, I couldn’t say a word. But once the game started I stopped thinking and things just started to roll.”

Roll they did, and not just for Kuljic.

The entire Redmen team put together a near perfect game to capture the city championship with a 106-71 victory over the Bishop Grandin Ghosts.

Kuljic finished with a game high 32 points and a dozen rebounds and Eli Prochnau added 21 points for the Redmen.

Ghosts big man Eddie Asamoah scored 25 points to pace the Ghosts’ offense.

The victory was some sweet redemption for a team that lost out on the championship last season when they lost to the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs in the same gym at Crescent Heights High School just one year ago.

I think that experience is what a lot of it comes down to,” said Kuljic when asked about how last year’s loss affected his team this year. “We just had what it takes to win. The experience and knowledge, to know how to perform under pressure and we managed to pull it out. I’m glad it ended this way.”

Obviously, a championship game means a lot to anybody involved in the game. Be it a player, coach, trainer or a rabid fan, the possibility of being associated with a championship isn’t something that comes a long that often.

But it was clear right from the opening tip-off that this game meant everything to the Redmen on this night, especially considering that most of their core starters were part of the team that fell short last year.

“You know what,” started Wiebe. “They prepared for this, they came ready to play. They shot the lights out obviously and they played so hard defensively. Every guy that hit the floor tonight contributed something and that’s unusual. I couldn’t be prouder of these guys because they worked so hard for it and they wanted it so bad and they finally did it on the biggest stage so far for them.”

The pain of last year’s loss was still there perhaps, living somewhere in their heads hoping to be erased with a victory over the Ghosts.

And Ghosts were looking for some redemption too after being beat handily by the Redmen in final of the Calgary Basketball Classic pre-season tournament.

But for some reason, the Redmen seem to bring out the worst in the Ghosts, because they certainly aren’t as bad as the two scores from their battles against the Redmen would indicate.

“This is honestly a dream come true,” said Kuljic. “It’s been three years running to try and get to here and we finally make it. I’m at a loss for words.”

The Ghosts did have a great start to the game.

In the first quarter they built up a nice 15-5 lead midway through the opening quarter thanks in large part to their speedy guards and the yeoman like work of Asamoah.

But after being cold for the first eight minutes of the play the Redmen shooters started to find their range, especially from beyond the 3-point arc.

When Redmen guard Ammon Crowfoot drained a long three-pointer with just over two minutes to play in the opening quarter the Redmen took a 22-19 lead.

Crowfoots three-pointer was just one of the 12 the team made in the opening half. They would finish with 20 three-pointers in total.

From that point on, the Redmen would never trail again.

“So many guys hit shots tonight, and we know we can shoot, but stepping up when it counts is huge, it was unbelievable,” said Wiebe.

Crowfoot, a grade 11 player, was also involved in perhaps that game’s most intriguing one-on-one matchup against Ghosts’ point guard Josh Daniel.

The two talented guards went head-to-head for pretty much the entire game, providing plenty of intense and entertaining duels on both ends of the court.

By time the game reached the mid-way point the Redmen stretched their lead to 56-39.

The lead grew to 78-57 by the end of the third quarter.

The fourth quarter was much the same as the previous two-and-a-half quarters.

Plenty of open looks for the, plenty of made jump shots by pretty much anyone wearing a white jersey with name Western scrolled across the front.

Both teams will play in the Provincial tournament next weekend, which is co-hosted by the towns of Cardston, Raymond and Lethbridge.

They will be joined by the Notre Dame Pride and the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs.

The Pride defeated the Bulldogs on Friday night to capture the third spot in the senior boys’ Div I standings.