Hawks soar into Zone championship

Times Reporter    

 

It has been a long but fruitful season for the Holy Cross Collegiate Hawks basketball team. Coach and Athletic Director Michael Annicchiarico entered his team into tournaments, and have been part of an extremely competitive league, something he was hoping would help when the time came for zones and the team would be playing schools closer to their zones. All of the hard work paid off and the boys officially took the title of 2A Zone champions on March 9.  

The boys went in as the number one seed, meaning their first game was against the eighth seed. 

“We by far had the easiest game in the first round but it got a lot tougher after that first one. The second game we only won by three points and then the third we won by nine,” said Annicchiarico. 

“The championship game (it was) definitely our full court press (that) won it for us. We were playing Strathcona Tweedsmuir and they were up on us for most of the game. 

“They were up by about 10 points in that early third quarter and we put on a full court press on them to try and put a little more pressure on the ball handler then it worked out pretty well. We went on a big run, like a 23-3 run in probably about five minutes and completely changed the game. I think that was definitely the turning point.”

A winning attitude is something Annicchiarico plans to bring to his team next season. He said once you win, you know how to prepare, and how to handle it. The boys are going to provincials now in Lethbridge, an experience that will be new to the whole team, including Annicchiarico. 

“I’m (like) a deer in the headlights, but hopefully I will become a better coach because of it and some of my Grade 10’s will learn a lot from it, we’ll just be more poised in future years,” said Annicchiarico.

“We got a couple Grade 10’s that are very strong for their grade, James Batista and Chris O’Leary, and we have a couple other Grade 10’s Josh Helke who’s new to basketball, this is his first year, and Justin Driscoll, he’s played a few years. There’s definitely some talent there but it’s going to definitely be a learning curve after this year.”

The teams will be heading to provincials this weekend, March  14-16 in Lethbridge.