Gold Medalists

Tuesday, 29 April 2014 12:13

Oxford Attack Under 14 Major Bantam Boys basketball team wins gold at provincial championships

The Oxford Attack Under 14 Major Bantam Boys competitive basketball team swept four games en route to an exciting gold medal finish in Division 14 at their provincial championships in Toronto over the weekend.

The gold medal finale versus the Milton Stags came down to the final minutes of the game. The Attack trailed with less than 2 minutes left and began to foul the Stags to intentionally put them on the foul line to stop the clock and get the ball back. The Attack were down by four points with 17 seconds left in the game when Brandon Cowan nailed his 5^th 3-point shot of the game to narrow the deficit to 1 point. The Attack’s aggressive full court pressure defense then caused a Stags turnover to give the ball back to the Attack with under 10 seconds left. The Attack ran a designed in-bounds play which was quickly broken up by the Stags and left the Attack scrambling when the ball ended up in Cowan’s hands and he delivered a clutch floating jump shot with 1.5 seconds to steal the gold medal from near defeat by winning 36-35. Lucas Gagnon collected 8 tough rebounds for his team in the final and played stellar defense against the Stags best post player. Liam Dempsey and Ben Jentz effectively ran the team as guards to combat the Stag’s stubborn 1-3-1 zone defense. Matthew Keith and Callaghan Bullen also netted some crucial baskets in the low scoring final. Cowan finished with 22 points to lead the team.

The Attack opened the championships with a solid 54-34 victory over the Nepean Blue Devils. Ibrahim Taha and Quinten Quackenbush-Schneider each scored 4 points for the complete team win. Zachary Dykeman played good defense and got 2 big steals from his wing position

The Attack next faced the Naismith Gaels and dominated the second half en route to 51-34 win. Cowan paced the Attack with 28 points while Liam Dempsey contributed 6 steals. Adam Bullen continued his team leading free throw percentage by going perfect from the charity stripe. Cooper Gilson came in to finish the game as the lead guard and did an effective job; especially on defense.

The semi-finals shaped up to be a tough game versus London CYO with whom the Attack were 1-1 against this season. London played a tough 3-2 zone defense and game planned to take away the Attack’s 3-point shooting, but this opened up the key area to allow Callaghan Bullen to flourish netting 21 points to lead the team. The Attack pulled away in the 4^th quarter with Cubby Dempster getting 2 key baskets to ensure a 54-42 win and advancement to the gold medal game.