A great night for the birthday boy — with the baker putting the icing on the cake.
Adam Pahl led the Foothills Falcons with 29 points on his 18th birthday as they downed their cross-town rivals the Holy Trinity Academy Knights 92-73 at a packed Falcons gym Friday night.
“It was a good birthday present,” Pahl said with a smile after the team’s victory in both squads opening game of the Falcon Classic. “We were excited to play. To play in front of a big crowd it is always fun, but coach (Amron Gwilliam) always tells us to treat this as just another game.”
But it’s never just another game when the rivals meet in front of hundreds of Okotoks fans.
Falcon Peter Baker had one of his best night’s shooting as he hit six threes and finished with 22 points.
“I had a bad shooting weekend last week, so I spent a lot of time in the gym this week putting a lot of shots up,” Baker said. “It was really a lot of fun out there tonight, the crowd was going wild and we executed well. ”
Baker got things going as he made a steal in the opening seconds, then dished a pass to Pahl who went in for the lay-up to give Foothills a 2-0 lead.
Foothills jumped out to a 10-0 lead and the Knights looked like they were in for a long night. However, the chipped away and took a 21-20 lead when Chase Casavant hit a three midway through the second quarter. The would extend the lead to 24-20.
The Falcons would take a 41-31 advantage into the locker room at the half. HTA would whittle the lead down to 53-49 in the third quarter but that would be as close as they would get.
The Knights went into the battle missing their leading scorer Jesse Ralph who was out with an injury.
They turned in a gutsy performance as they soldiered on after losing six-foot-six Jordan Cyr with a leg injury in the third quarter.
“Our guys played as hard as they could and I was happy with their effort,” Knights coach Sam Aiello said. “Being down Jordan and Jesse, that hurt our post game significantly, but I thought Justin (Cyr), Cole (Fieseler) and Luc (Leslie) played really hard for us.”
The Grade 10 Justin Cyr — Jordan’s younger brother — led the Knights in scoring with 16 points in this his foray in the rivalry game.
The Falcons will now take on the Ernest Manning Griffins Saturday at 11:30 a.m. in the semifinals at the Comp. If they win, they will advance to the finals at 8:15 p.m.
The Knights will square off against the Springbank Phoenix at 8 a.m. in the consolation semifinal.
All games are at Foothills Comp.
