The Tribune

By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

The Sts Francis and Joseph School Shockers’ boys swept the Xavier’s Lower School Giants 2-0 in the Catholic Board of Education Primary Schools Championships to become the 2023 champions yesterday at Loyola Hall.

The Shockers’ girls will return to the same venue today to try and accomplish the same feat after the Giants evened their best-of-three series 1-1 in game two.

For the boys, the win not only made them champions but it was the cherry on top of an undefeated regular season and postseason run. Nkomo Ferguson, head coach of the Shockers and recipient of the coach award, was very pleased with the 16-3 dominant victory. “It feels awesome and they played well. The game was a bit sloppy but they cleaned it up at the end. It feels really good to close out the season undefeated,” Ferguson said.

The Shockers meant business in game two of the best-of-three championship series against the Giants. The team steamrolled the latter for two consecutive quarters and went into the halftime break leading 8-0.

In the third quarter, the team kept the run going by scoring another two points to make the lead 10-0 at the 1:03 mark.

The Giants were finally able to get on the scoreboard in this period following a lone made free throw. The latter then scored a layup to change the score to 10-3. However, the Shockers remained unphased and scored back-to-back uncontested layups to seal the deal on a perfect basketball season.

Emery Sturrup was the team’s leading scorer with 6 points in the closeout game. Overall, he culminated his postseason run with a total of 29 points between the playoffs and championship rounds to earn him the League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) and championship MVP trophies.

Sturrup talked about the experience of winning his first championship with the Shockers. “I feel good and I am excited because I have never won a championship so I am happy for all of us. The game was fun and I learned a lot,” the MVP said.

Girls

Although the boys fell to the Shockers, the Giants’ girls rebounded 7-6 in game two to force a win or go home game three today at Loyola Hall. Both teams traded baskets in the opening minutes of the contest to even the score at 2. The halftime break saw the Giants in charge 4-3. The game came down to which team could knock down their shots at the charity stripe and the Giants answered the call.

Grace Smith, who finished with 4 points for the Shockers, split a pair of free throws at the line making the score 6-4. Smith was fouled again on a shot attempt and made a free throw while missing another off the iron.

With the Giants in charge 7-5, the Shockers had a chance to force an extra period of play but Smith was unsuccessful in her final attempts at the foul line.

Raygail Smith, head coach of the Giants, said a change in the team’s game plan helped them to earn Wednesday’s win.

“We had to change our game plan from yesterday’s game. We made a couple more defensive plays. We knew we could not double team them so we played a tight man to man defence and it paid off,” she said. “We have to finish the job, we want to win tomorrow,” she added.

Game three gets underway 3:45pm today at Loyola Hall for the girls division of the Catholic Board of Education Primary Schools Championships.