Jonas Emilsson
www.KramMag.com

Not only did the Western Canada Redmen make a lot of 3-pointers, they made them at crucial parts of the game.

The Redmen nailed eight shots from outside the arch in the first half, and followed that up with six more in the second half to finish off Edmonton’s St. Francis Xavier Rams 76-69 in the boys final of the Redmen Invitational Tournament.

“That was a stressfull game,” said Redmen’s head coach Steve Wiebe. “St.Francis has some real athletes on their team and they fly around the court and they put pressure on the ball from all angles.

The final pitted the province’s No. 1-ranked team (Redmen) versus the No. 2-ranked team (Rams).

However, those rankings may change after the Redmen lost to the Cardston Cougars in last weekend’s Top Dog tournament at Sir Winston Churchill.

Eli Prochnau and Francis Cormier each chipped in with 19 points to pace the Redmen’s scoring and Ammon Crowfoot added 17 points.

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Nathaniel Wojcicki scored a game-high 26 points for the Rams.

Besides the accuracy from outside the three-point line, another reason for the Redmens’ success was the ability to shut down Davis Mulatris. The speedy guard scored eight points in the opening half but was held off the score sheet in the second.

Mulatris won Player of the Game honours in the Rams’ previous two games, but against the Redmen his slash-to-the-hoop and score style of game was stymied by excellent down-low defense of Nebojsa Kuljic, an athletic 6’4” post player.

The Rams held an early 10-9 lead four minutes into the opening quarter, but two straight 3s by Crowfoot, a slick 5’10” guard, gave the Redmen a three-point lead.

Crowfoot was 4 of 4 from long range to lead the Redmen with 12 first-half points.

Despite the Redmen’s lights-out shooting, the Rams managed to keep things close by getting hard-fought points by driving aggressively to the hoop and making difficult layups.

The Redmen held a 24-21 lead after one quarter of play.

Trailing 34-30 midway through the second quarter, the Rams coaching staff sensed the momentum swinging in the Redmen’s favour and called a timeout to avoid their team falling too far behind.

The decision turned out to be a good one as the Rams re-took the momentum on a nifty three-point play by Wojcicki to give his team a 39-37 lead with under two minutes to play in the first half.

“They switched their defenses like ten times in the game,” said Wiebe. “The went from a 2-3 zone to man defense, then they went to a box-and-one and then triangle and two, and that disrupted our flow.”

Defense was one thing the Rams’ coaching staff new they would have to play well in order to stay with the high-flying Redmen.

“We’re pretty happy because they’re a pretty high offensive team and we held them to 76 points,” said Rams’ head coach Jeremy Posteraro. “We knew that they like to live on the 3-point line so we wanted to make them uncomfortable, we changed our defenses up to take some time off the clock and not let them get too comfortable.”

The Redmen battled back to square the score at 41-41 just before the half-time horn sounded.

Both teams continued the see-saw affair for much of the third quarter, but with just over three minutes to play it was Prochnau’s turn swing the momentum in the Redmen’s favour.

The grade-12 guard, who was voted tournament MVP, drained three consecutive 3-pointers to give the Redmen the lead.

Good thing actually, considering seconds after Prochnau’s third 3-pointer the Redmen were forced to sit Cormier when he picked up his fourth foul, which could have been a bad thing considering 5’11” guard is probably the team’s most dangerous scorer.

“I think the story of the game was…sometimes we didn’t react well to what they did, but when it came down to it, guys hit big shots and they played hard on defense and guys sacrificed their bodies for the team,” said Wiebe.

The Rams put together another rally midway through the final quarter to get them to within one at 66-65, but Crowfoot’s fifth 3-pointer of the game put an end to the Rams’ late challenge.

The victory may just salvage the Redmen’s No. 1 ranking in the province considering who they, but several other teams could justifiably occupy the top spot next time they are released.

“If we drop to two or three or four it doesn’t really matter to me so much,” said Wiebe. “I think there are five or six teams in the province that could all hold the No. 1 spot in the province at any given time. We’ll probably drop a rank or two, but that’s just the way it goes.”

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