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Knights take down sore Spartans

You have to be at your best to beat the best. The visiting banged-up Strathmore Spartans proved to be no match to the host Holy Trinity Academy Knights as they dropped an 85-48 decision in the Foothills Athletic Council Sr. boys final Saturday.
Holy Trinity Academy Knight Kessler Bishop challenges a Strathmore Spartan during the FAC final on March 4 at HTA. The Knights won by an 85-48 score.
Holy Trinity Academy Knight Kessler Bishop challenges a Strathmore Spartan during the FAC final on March 4 at HTA. The Knights won by an 85-48 score.

You have to be at your best to beat the best.

The visiting banged-up Strathmore Spartans proved to be no match to the host Holy Trinity Academy Knights as they dropped an 85-48 decision in the Foothills Athletic Council Sr. boys final Saturday.

“We were missing our two leading scorers, Jonathon Le May and Ryan Edwards,” said Spartans coach Matt Laslo. “We struggled to score, but we worked hard.”

The Spartans worked hard enough to take an early 8-3 lead and both teams struggled putting the ball in the bucket. HTA took their first lead when Cole Fieseler made an easy lay-up on a nice feed from Justin Cyr to make it 9-8 late in the first quarter. The score after the first 10 minutes sounded like a football matchup as HTA had a slim 13-10 margin over the Spartans of Strathmore.

“It took us a while to get going, we were a bit nervous -- we didn’t play in a league final last year,” said Knights coach Sam Aiello. “And Strathmore plays hard.”

The Knights found their way quickly.

HTA took a 12-point lead just over three minutes in the second quarter on a three-point bomb by Matt Scharien to make it 25-13. Chase Casavant would put the Knights up 35-15 with a lay-up with three minutes left in the half.

The Knights stingy defence combined with the Spartans not having all their pistons firing resulted in the 36-18 lead at the half. HTA allowed only eight points in the second quarter.

The rout was on.

HTA could do no wrong, which was made most evident when Knights guard and co-captain Ethan Miller made a spectacular three-point shot while falling away with the shot clock winding down to give HTA a 73-35 lead with five minutes left.

Laslo had a hard time believing there’s a shortage of water in Okotoks after being run over by the black-and-white truck.

“They are sure big, they make it a tough match-up at virtually every level – I don’t know what you guys have in the water out here,” Laslo said. “They move the ball well, they are unselfish – they are a pretty good team.”

Fieseler led the Knights in scoring with 19 points. However, his biggest thrill on the day for the co-captain wasn’t canning a jumper it was accepting the FAC banner with Miller.

“It means a lot -- it shows the effort we put in in order to get this far,” the Grade 12 student said. “It’s not just one person, it’s our entire team working together. It felt good.”

The Knights spread the wealth with four players finishing in double digits in scoring. Casavant contributed 11 points, while Kessler Bishop and Ethan Miller had 10 each.

But it was the Knights stepping up on defence in the opening 10 minutes that turned things around.

“We put more pressure on defence -- we started fighting through screens and stopped them from getting to the middle, forcing them to take bad shots from outside,” Fieseler said. “Then we just started to make our own shots.”

The game was another step in the return of the Knights six-foot-five forward Jesse Ralph, who suffered a freak head injury in February. The Grade 12 student was happy to be back in the line-up. He was part of the squad that lost to the Spartans in the FAC semifinal last season.

“This is a big deal, a lot of our guys have never won a banner and neither have I,” Ralph said with a smile. “Strathmore beat us last year, so it was a good feeling to get back on top of the league.”

The Knights last won the FAC in 2015. HTA has a much bigger hurdle this week as it takes on the Chestermere Lakers and the Foothills Falcons in the 4A South Central zones. This is the first-time in school history the Knights have made the jump to 4A for hoops.

The Knights opened the three-team round-robin against Chestermere March 7 at HTA.

They will take on the Falcons Thursday at 7:15 p.m. at HTA. The top two teams from the mini-round robin will play in the SC zone final Saturday at 2 p.m. at HTA.

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