Down 13 points with 12 minutes left in the season, the Chestermere Lakers junior boys basketball team needed a time out.
Coach Mitchell Turgeon called his group together and cued the speech. Regardless of what the score was, he knew his team had the ability to win the South Central zone final against Foothills Composite.
“I told the guys we’ve done this before,” Turgeon said. “We’ve played in a loud gym in a final in a big tournament. We’ve came back once before against Canmore and we did it Wednesday against (Holy Trinity Academy).
“I told them we’ve done this before. We’ve done all this, so let’s do it again.”
After that time out, the Lakers outscored their opponents 35-11 to win 75-64 and win their final game of the season. They bring back Rocky View and South Central zone banners to the Chestermere gym, which is the ideal way to cap off a rollercoaster year.
“This is awesome,” Turgeon said. “Before playoffs I told the guys we’re six wins away from putting two banners on the wall. We counted down every game.
“At the end of the day, we won all six of those games and accomplished what we started at the beginning of the year on Nov. 1. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
The Lakers started the zone tournament with a 70-61 victory over Foothills Composite on Tuesday, then had a tough game against Holy Trinity on Wednesday. They were down 11 points at the half, but built up to a three-point lead in the final seconds, only to see a buzzer beater tie it and send the game to overtime.
However, the Lakers prevailed by a count of 94-89, and that set up the final showdown with Foothills.
Malek Meddeb led the Lakers in that game with 24 points, while Ben Bitzan poured in 21 and Logan Bennett added 14. It was the defence that sparked the comeback though, as the Lakers created turnovers and converted to go on a remarkable run.
“For us to hold them to 11 points over the final 12 minutes was a big factor,” Turgeon said. “We were cleaning up defensive rebounds and gaining possessions for us and we took possessions away from them. That’s what we needed.”
This team looks to be just as strong next year as Meddeb, Bitzan and Bennett will be returning next year to the junior team, and the future looks bright for the seniors if they continue on this path.
“We will miss some of the Grade 10s that are moving up, but those three guys are all in Grade 9,” Turgeon said. “They are our leading scorers and they are the guys we count on down the stretch. They will all be back next year.
“And next year we’ve planned a much tougher tournament schedule in preparation for us having a much stronger team.”
